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UNSVERSiTY  Or  CALIFORNL 
AT    LOS  ANGELES 


THE  GIFT  OF 

MAY  TREAT  MORRISON 

IN  MEMORY  OF 

ALEXANDER  F  MORRISON 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/coincidencesbacoOOreed 


COINCIDENCES 


Mr.  Reed's  books  on  the  Authorship  of  Shake- 
speare, uniform  in  paper,  print  and  binding  with  the 
present  one,  wholesale  and  retail : 

*Brief  for  Plaintiff,  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere', 

8th  edition,  illustrated.     A   summary    of  the 
whole  argument.      (soon.) 

*Francis  Bacon,  Our  Shake-speare'. 

242  pp.   $2.00  net. 

*Bacon  and  Shake-speare  Parallelisms'. 

437  PP-  I2.50  net. 

^Noteworthy   Opinions,    Pro   and    Con,    Bacon 
vs.  Shakspere'.  79  pp.  $1.35  net. 

^Coincidences,  Bacon  and  Shake-speare'. 

152  pp.  ^1.75  net. 

*Bacon  and  Shake-speare  on  Love'.       (soon). 

Edition  of  'Julius  Caesar'  with  Introduction  and 
Notes,     (soon). 

^Edition  of  The  Tempest'  with  Introduction  and 
Notes,     (soon). 


Apply  to 

Messrs  COBURN  PUBLISHING  COMPANY, 

60  Pearl  St.,  Boston,  Mass. 

Forwarded  on  receipt  of  price,  post  or  express  pre-paid,  to  any  part  of  tbe  world. 


^^^/^^^  /^i-r^^^u-^ 


COINCIDENCES 

BACON  and  SHAKESPEARE 


By  EDWIN  KEED,  A.  M. 

Author  of  BACON  vs.  SHAKSPERE,  Brief  for  PlaintifF. 

FRANCIS  BACON,  OUR  SHAKE-SFEARE. 

NOTEWORTHY  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON.  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 


BOSTON: 
COBrr-RN  Publishing  Oo« 

60  PXJARL  STRBBT, 

1906 


Copyright.   1906 

By  Edwin  Reed. 


Entered  at  Stationers'  HalL 
London. 


COBITBN  Pbess, 

GO  Pkael  St.,  Boston,  Mass. 


7f  P^c. 


IN 

MEMORY 
OF 

NATHANIEL  HOLMES, 
The  manliest  man  of  manly  mea 


CO 


4319S8 


PREFACE. 


This  book  is  an  expansion  of  the  first  chapter  of 
my  'Francis  Bacon,  Our  Shake-speare',  published 
in  1902.  It  will  serve  as  a  companion  to  my  book  of 
Parallelisms,  especially  when  the  latter  shall  be  issued 
in  its  second  edition,  and  the  entries  therein  classified 
as  far  as  possible  according  to  subjects. 

I  take  this  opportunity  to  remind  my  readers,  as  I 
have  already  done  in  previous  publications,  that  when 
the  reputed  Stratford  author  is  referred  to,  his  name 
is  spelled  as  he  and  his  kindred  generally  spelled  it, 
Shakspere;  but  when  the  author  of  the  plays,  as  such, 
without  regard  to  personality,  is  meant,  the  name  is 
spelled  as  it  was  often  spelled  in  the  early  editions  of 
the  plays,  both  quartos  and  folios, — Shake-speare. 

It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  while  the  orthography 
of  proper  names  in  those  days  was  very  capricious, 
the  name  of  the  dramatist  was  always  (with  two  very 
slight  unimportant  exceptions)  printed  in  one  way  in 
the  dramas,  but  never  so  in  a  single  instance  in  other 
writings.  That  is  to  say,  what  was  invariable  in  the 
one  case  contrary  to  custom  was  in  the  other  accord- 
ing to  custom  variable. 

The  hyphen  between  the  syllables  appears  fifteen 
times  in  the  printed  editions  of  the  poems  and  plays, 
but  not  once  in  any  record  made  of  the  reputed  poet 
during  his  entire  life.  This  of  itself  seems  to  me  to 
establish  the  name,  Shake-speare,  as  a  pseudonym. 

EDWIN  REED. 


Coincidences. 


I. 

Kent  County. 
The  author  of  the  Shake-speare  plays  appears  to 
have  had  a  special  prepossession  in  favor  of  the  people 
of  Kent   County,  England.     In  the  drama  of    King 
Henry  VI.,  written  in  his  youth,  he  says: 

"  Kent,  in  the  Commentaries  Caesar  writ, 
Is  term'd  the  civil'st  place  in  all  this  isle  ; 
Sweet  is  the  country,  because  full  of  riches  ; 
The  people  liberal,  valiant,  active,  wealthy." 

2  King  Henry  VI.,  iv.  7,  61. 

No  compliment  of  this  kind  is  paid  in  the  plays  to 
any  other  English  county. 

The  Bacon  family  came  from  Kent. 


COINCIDENCES 


II. 

Aristocracy. 

The  author  of  the  plays  was  a  patrician.     He  never 

speaks  of  the  people  but  in  terms  of  contempt.     With 

him  it  is  always  the  fool  multitude,  tag-rag  people, 

sweaty  rabblement; — 

"  The  beast  with  many  heads." 

Coriolanus  IV.,  i,  2. 
"  The  monster  with  uncounted  heads." 

2  King  Henry  IV,  Induction,  i8. 

Bacon  was  a  patrician,  his  rank  in  the  peerage 
having  been  successively  as  Sir  Francis  Bacon,  Baron 
Verulam,  and  Viscount  St.  Alban.  In  sentiment  he 
was  an  extreme  royalist,  the  champion  of  the  King's 
prerogative  against  popular  rights.  According  to 
him,  "the  lowest  virtues  draw  praise  from  the 
people,  the  middle  virtues  work  in  them  astonish- 
ment, but  of  the  highest  virtues  they  have  no  sense 
or  perceiving  at  all."  He  advised  all  men,  when 
applauded  by  the  multitude,  "immediately  to  ex- 
amine themselves  to  see  what  fault  or  blunder  they 
may  have  committed." 

He  was  fond  of  using  such  expressions  as  these: 

"The  beast  with  many  heads." 

Charge  against  Talbot. 
"  The  monster  with  many  heads." 

Conferettce  of  Pleasure. 

The  following  will  also  indicate  a  like  social  rank  : 

"Let  me  have  no  lying;  it  becomes  none  but  tradesmen."  — 
Shake-spear e.      Winter'' s  Tale,  »w.,  4,  74^. 

"  Men  of  birth  and  quality  will  leave  the  practice  when  it  comes 
so  low  as  barbers,  surgeons,  butchers,  and  such  base  mechanical 
persons."  —  Bacon.     Speech  on  Duelling. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE         3 

III. 
Cambridge  University. 

The  author  of  the  Shakespearean  poems  '  Venus 
and  Adonis  '  and  '  Lucrece  '  was  educated  at  one  or 
more  of  the  three  English  universities,  Oxford,  Cam- 
bridge, and  the  Inns  of  Court  in  London.  His  name 
is  given  in  such  a  connection  as  to  indicate  that  he 
was  a  graduate  of  one  or  another  of  them  in  a  book 
entitled  '  Polimanteia,'  and  printed  in  Cambridge  by 
the  Printer  to  the  University  in  1595.  He  is  speci- 
fically mentioned  therein  as  the  author  of  the  Poems 
'  Venus  and  Adonis  '  and  '  Lucrece.' 

The  particular  university,  thus  indicated  as  Shake- 
speare's ahna  inatei\  it  is  almost  certain,  was  Cam- 
bridge, for  a  dialectical  usage,  peculiar  to  the 
students  there,  found  its  way  into  '  Titus  Andron- 
icus,'  a  play  written,  as  Coleridge  afhrms,  when  the 
dramatist  must  have  been  fresh  from  college  life. 
Charles  and  Mary  Cowden  Clarke  also  held  this  view. 
The  usage  in  question  was  to  substitute  the  verb  to 
keep  for  to  live,  as  in  the  line, — 

"  Knock  at  his  study  where,  they  say,  he  keeps." 

No  person,  however,  by  the  name  of  Shakespeare,  or 
Shakspere,  was  ever  enrolled  at  any  of  the  institu- 
tions mentioned  above.  Indeed,  we  have  no  pretence 
in  any  quarter  that  Shakspere  of  Stratford  ever  at- 
tended one  of  them. 

The  above-stated  facts  require  some  elucidation, 
not  only  because  of  their  importance,  but  also  be- 
cause of  the  extraordinary  efforts  hitherto  made  by 
many  Shakspereans  to  suppress  them. 

I.  The  author  of  the  '  Polimanteia '  signed  his 
name  to  it  as  W.  C,  probably  William  Clerke,  who 
was   matriculated   as   a  sizar   of    Trinity  College  in 


4  COINCIDENCES 

June,  1575,  became  a  scholar  there,  and,  four  years 
later,  proceeded  B.  A.  He  was  soon  afterward 
elected  a  fellow,  and  in  1582  commenced  M.  A. 
We  may  therefore  safely  assume,  as  Dr.  Grosart 
assumes,  in  his  Introduction  to  a  reprint  of  the 
'  Polimanteia,'  and  as  the  book  itself  plainly  shows, 
that  Gierke  was  "  familiar  with  his  illustrious  con- 
temporaries," and  worthy  of  credence  in  what  he  says 
of  them.  His  character  as  an  author  has  never  been 
called  in  question. 

2.  The  book  was  printed  at  Cambridge  by  John 
Legate,  printer  to  the  University,  in  1595.  It  was 
issued  from  the  press  two  years  after  the  '  Venus  and 
Adonis  '  was  issued,  one  year  after  the  Lucrece,  but 
earlier  than  any  Shakespearean  play  that  has  come 
down  to  us. 

3.  Prominent  among  its  contents  is  a  letter  pur- 
porting to  have  been  written  by  England  in  her 
sovereign  capacity,  and  addressed  to  her  Three 
Daughters,  the  Universities  of  Cambridge,  Oxford, 
and  Inns  of  Court.  It  is  in  spirit  and  terms  highly 
eulogistic,  especially  in  comparison  with  institutions 
of  learning  of  the  same  rank  on  the  continent.  Then, 
scattered  throughout  the  text  and  along  the  margins 
of  the  book  are  names  of  many  persons  who  in  the 
writer's  opinion  have  evidently  done  honor  to  these 
institutions  by  their  presence  as  students  in  one  or 
more  of  them.  The  persons  thus  named  number 
about  thirty.  They  are  called  England's  grand- 
children, as  the  universities  themselves  are  called 
England's  Daughters.  They  include  Shakespeare, 
and  they  include  him  specifically,  too,  as  the  author 
of  the  Shakespearean  poems  '  Venus  and  Adonis  '  and 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE         5 

'  Liicrece.'  With  one  exception  the  '  Polimanteia  * 
is  thns  the  first  book  in  English  literature,  other 
than  the  two  poems  themselves,  to  contain  the  name 
of  Shakespeare;  indeed,  to  contain  the  name  as  it 
does,  together  with  the  titles  of  Shakespeare's  works 
as  then  published,  it  was  absolutely  the  first. 

4.  The  passages  in  the  '  Polimanteia  '  stand  thus: 

*'  All  praise  Wanton 

worthy  Adonis" 

lyucretia 

Sweet  Shak- 
speare 

Eloquent 
Gaveston 

These  names  and  titles  are  in  the  margins  of  the 
book;  a  fact,  however,  of  no  special  significance,  for 
seventeen  other  names  and  titles  are  there  also.  In 
another  chapter  where  Queen  Elizabeth  is  eulogized, 
the  author  puts  her  name  in  the  margin. 

5.  The  persons  mentioned,  including  all  whose 
careers  we  can  trace,  and  the  particular  universities 
to  which  they  may  be  severally  assigned  are  as 
follows  : 

Edmund  Campion  (Oxford) 

William  Whitaker  (Cambridge) 

William  Fulke  (Cambridge) 

Thomas  Stapleton  (Oxford) 

Lawrence  Humphrey  (Oxford) 

John  Rainolds  (Oxford) 

Sir  Philip  Sidney  (Oxford) 

Edmund  Spenser  (Cambridge) 

Henry  Stanley  (Oxford) 


COINCIDENCES 


Ferdinando  Stanley 
Sir  Christopher  Hatton 
Earl  of  Essex 
Thomas  Campion 
Nicholas  Breton 
William  Percy 
Henry  Willoughby 
Abraham  Fraunce 
Thomas  Lodge 
Sir  John  Davies 
Michael  Drayton 
Sir  Hugh  Plat 
Thomas  Kidd 
Gabriel  Harvey 
Thomas  Nash 
William  Alablaster 
Sweet  Shakspeare 
John  Lydgate 
Samuel  Daniel 


(Oxford) 

(Oxford) 

(Cambridge) 

(Cambridge) 

(Oxford) 

(Oxford) 

(Oxford) 

(Cambridge) 

(Oxford,  Inns  of  Court) 

(Oxford,  Inns  of  Court) 

(Oxford) 

(Cambridge,  Inns  of  Court) 

(Cambridge) 

(Cambridge) 

(Cambridge) 

(Cambridge) 

(  ) 

(Cambridge,  Oxford) 
(Oxford) 


The  book  is  dedicated  in  terms  of  most  extrav- 
agant eulogy  to  the  Earl  of  Essex,  with  whom 
Francis  Bacon  was  then,  as  legal  adviser  and  friend, 
closely  associated.  Bacon's  name  does  not  appear 
in  Clerke's  list,  although  he  had  at  that  time  been 
out  of  college  nineteen  years,  was  a  leading  member 
of  Parliament,  had  produced  a  work  on  philosophy, 
and  become  generally  known  as  a  man  of  extraordi- 
nary talents.  Perhaps  Clerke  included  him  under  a 
pseudonym,  as  any  one  now,  in  making  a  list  of  the 
distinguished  graduates  of  Miss  Franklin's  school  in 
Coventry,  would  insert,  not  the  name  of  Mary  Ann 
Evans  by  which  one  of  the  pupils  was  known  in 
school,   but    that   which    Mary   Ann    Evans   subse- 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE  7 

quently  adopted  for  literary  purposes,  George  Eliot. 
In  that  case  the  blank  space  above,  in  our  assign- 
ments to  the  respective  universities,  would  be  filled 
up  thus: 

(Cambridge,  Inns  of  Court.) 

6.  From  1595,  date  of  publication  of  the  Poliman- 
teia,  to  1849,  a  period  of  254  years,  this  book  in  its 
bearings  on  the  education  of  the  author  of  the  plays 
received  from  Shakesperean  scholars  no  recognition 
whatever.  It  was  not  mentioned,  we  believe,  by  any 
one  of  them  during  that  time. 

But  in  1849  the  Rev.  N.  J.  Halpin  of  Dublin  pub- 
lished a  learned  work  on  the  '  Dramatic  Writings  '  of 
Shakespeare,  and  in  the  course  of  some  observations 
on  Shakespeare's  knowledge  of  the  Greek  drama 
made  the  following  statement: 

"  There  is  in  my  possession  evidence  of  the  most 
authentic  kind,  quite  sufficient  to  satisfy  me,  that  of 
one  (or  perhaps  more)  of  the  English  universities,  as 
then  existing,  William  Shakespeare  was  a  student. 
Is  not  this  an  astounding  discovery,  which  has  kept 
itself  j5er(Z?<e  from  the  critics  until  the  middle  of  the 
nineteenth  century?  " 

It  will  be  seen  that  Mr.  Halpin  does  not  venture  to 
name  the  book.  If  we  may  judge  from  the  tone  of 
his  confession,  he  appears  to  have  been  under  some 
personal  restraint. 

7.  From  1849  until  the  present  time,  the  state  of 
things  on  which  we  are  commenting  has  become,  if 
possible,  even  worse.  With  hundreds  of  authors 
searching  or  pretending  to  search  every  nook  and 
cranny  for  information  relating  to  Shakespeare's 
life,  and  especially  to    the  extent  of  his  knowledge 


S  COINCIDENCES 

and  where  he  may  have  acquired  it,  not  one,  so  far  as 
we  know  or  can  ascertain,  has  cited  the  '  Polimanteia,' 
or  even  poor  frightened  Halpin's  conviction  on  the 
subject.  Ingleby,  to  be  sure,  criticised  the  wholly 
unimportant  arrangement  of  the  marginal  names  and 
titles  as  given  above;  such  as,  for  instance,  the  in- 
sertion of  the  note,  "eloquent  Gaveston,"  betv/een 
the  titles  of  the  two  Shakespeare  poems;  but  on  the 
bearings  of  the  book  respecting  the  great  question, 
where  was  Shakespeare  educated  or  was  he  educated 
at  all,  not  a  word.  Halliwell-Phillipps  casually 
mentions  the  book  in  his  Outlines,  and  among  the 
formal  documents  in  the  second  volume  quotes  from 
it;  but  he  carefully  excludes  all  reference  to  it  from 
his  index;  a  fact,  however,  not  surprising  in  the  case 
of  a  man  who  was  himself  excluded  for  many  years 
from  the  privileges  of  the  British  Museum  library  on 
charges  of  dishonesty.  Sidney  Lee  says  simply,  "  In 
1595,  William  Gierke  in  his  '  Polimanteia  '  gave  '  all 
praise  '  to  '  sweet  Shakespeare  '  for  his  '  Lucretia.'  " 
This  is  all,  for  Lee  also  excluded  the  subject  wholly 
from  his  index.  Richard  Grant  White,  Charles 
Allen,  Professor  Dowden,  Thomas  Campbell,  Howard 
Staunton,  George  Brandes,  F.  J.  Furnivall  and  others 
never  mention  either  the  book  or  its  author. 

8.  It  cannot  be  claimed  that  this  reticence  is  un- 
studied and  without  significance.  Here  is  a  contem- 
porary of  the  author  of  the  plays,  a  man  of  high 
character,  of  large  acquaintance  with  men  of  letters, 
himself  a  Cambridge  graduate,  who  practically  in- 
forms us,  in  a  book  printed  at  a  university  and  dedi- 
cated to  the  Earl  of  Essex,  that  the  author  of  the 
plays  was  educated  at  one  or  more  of  the  English 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE  9 

Universities.     Why  is  this  testimony  ignored?     Why 
is  it  concealed  from  the  public?  ^ 

Bacon  was  educated  at  Cambridge  and  Gray's  Inn. 
He  entered  the  university  at  the  age  of  twelve,  and 
left  it  three  years  later  without  waiting  to  take  a  de- 
gree, for  he  was  dissatisfied,  as  he  confessed  to  his 
amanuensis,  Rawley,  with  the  kind  of  philosophy 
taught  there.  From  college  Bacon  went  almost  im- 
mediately to  France,  returning  in  1579.  It  was  in 
1579,  while  he  was  studying  law  and  living  among 
the  enthusiastic  young  playwrights  of  Gray's  Inn, 
that  the  Shakespeare  dramas  began  to  be  produced. 


1  The  spirit  of  this  extraordinary  Letter  will  be  well  understood 
from  its  opening  paragraph: 

"  If  from  the  depth  of  entire  affection  I  take  upon  me  to  deal 
more  plainly  than  your  honorably  augmented  dignities  will  well 
permit,  or  from  too  fervent  a  love  overweighingly  value  you  at  too 
high  a  rate,  persuade  yourselves  (if  these  be  my  faults)  that  the 
name  of  a  mother  hath  a  privilege  to  excuse  them  both;  and  how- 
soever a  mothei  to  her  daughters  might  more  fitly  speak  in  secret 
and  not  hard,  yet,  seeing  my  naked  truth  desires  not  to  shroud  it- 
self from  my  greatest  enemies,  I  challenge  those  kingdoms  that 
have  had  children  to  be  witnesses  of  my  talk;  and  if  either  there  be 
folly  in  me,  for  to  love  so  much,  or  fault  in  you  to  deserve  so  little, 
then  let  them  blame  me  of  too  blind  affection,  and  accuse  you  of  not 
deserving;  and  so  speedily  from  Fame's  book  will  I  cancel  out  your 
praise,  and  recant  my  love  to  a  mother's  shame.  But  if  I  (justly 
fortunate)  have  high  cause  to  commend  you,  and  Europe  for  your 
sake  hath  greater  cause  to  commend  me,  then  may  I  not  lawfully 
with  a  mother's  love  show  the  affection  of  a  grandmother  to  com- 
mend your  children  ?  " 

The  chapter  following  in  the  'Polimanteia'  is  entitled 

England  to  all  her  Inhabitants, 
and  written  without  regard  to  university  affiliations. 


lo  COINCIDENCES 

England  to  her 

dcare^lvvKcieckmg  admired  daughters) 
write  and  let  rhe  worlde  know  that  hea- 
iiens  harmonic  is'no  mufickc,  in  rcfpcd 
of  your  fwcete^and  well  arte  tuned 
Arhigs :  that  Italun  ArioHo  did  but  (ha- 
de we  the  meaneft  part  of  thy  mufe^that 
TaJJos  Godfrey' \s  not  worchie  to  make 
compare  with  your  truelic  eternizing 
M.AUhU'  Elizas  {{\U\  let  France-adiiiiredBfZi«Tii?> 
^"''  and  courtlike  amarous  *7^(?«/^r^' con- 

c/iTr/.        ^ei^e  that  there  be  of  your  childreii^that 
in  thefe  latter  times  haue  farre  furpai^ 
vidUof!'  ^eddiem.  Let diuine'S^rr^yJT? eternally 
tet^esare     ptaife  worchie  for  his  weeks  worke,{ky 
^k^i'      the  bell  thingcs  were  made  iiril :  Let  o- 
ther  countries  (/wect  (Cambridge)  enuie, 
(yet  admire)  my  VtTgilyxS:cj  petrarch,di- 
uine  Spenfer.  And  vnlefTel  erre,(a  thing 
jiiipratfe    eafic  in  fuch  iimpHcitieJ  deluded  by 
"^'^*       dearhe  beloued  Delta^zrA  tbrtunatelic 
Lucrecia     fo r t uo  atc  Qleopatra,  Oxford^o  u  maiil 
Wf5^«^-g^jQ|j  ^    courte-deare-verfe  happie 
Eloquent     Danielle,  whole  iweete  refined  mule,  in 
Caucnon.    coHtraded  (hapc  ,  were  fufficient  a- 

mongft 

The  above  is  a  reproduction  of  a  page  of  the  Polimanteia, 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE        it 


threeDmghters* 

mongft  men,  to  gainc  pardon  o^ ihc yvnmon 
finnc  to  ^femona^  pittie  to  diftrefl'ed  ^'^o*"'- 
(^leopatray  andcuerliuing  praife  io\\qt ^1^^"^ 
iouing1>f/w.*Rcgifler  your  chWi^xtns  Sorveifgra- 
pctcgrcc  in  Fames  forehead,  To  niay  ^'^j^"'^''' 
you  fill  volumes  with  ^bau/trs  praife,  ucthsmmar- 
with  Lydgatcy  the  Scottifh  Knight,  and  'fr^'f^,  ^ , 

/*    f     i«t  I      /-  r        f   ^^  fromtbehaA 

iuch  like  ,  whole  vnrefined  tongues  ^///^^rt^/- 
farre  fliorte  of  the  cxcellencie  of  this  "'"f^'^^r 
age*  wrote  Imiphe  and  purelie  as  the  rimacof,u. 
times  weare.    And  when  bafe  and  m- (i'^^g^^'th 
iurious  trades ,  the  fworne  enemies  to  ^'"^'Z"^ 
Learnings  cternitie  (  a  thing  vluall)  BonoHs. 
ihall  haue  deuoured  them,  eicher  with  ^'^'^^"''^ 
the  fretting  cancker  wornie  of  mouldie  Mauida  [ka* 
time  :  v^i&zArahtan  fpiccrie:  v;ith  eng-  ^orabijho* 
lifli  honnie  :  with  omlandilh  hmtcr  "j-^'et /rli 
Cmatters  of  imployment  for  the  aged  x>mw4. 
dayes  of  our  late  authors)  yet  that  then 
fach  ^f  you  thinkc  them  worthiej  in  Procuihinc, 
dc^itc^of  bafe  Grofers,  ('whome  l^ZfLi 
charge  vpon  paine  of  learnings  curfe, 
notto  handle  a  leafe  ofmine)mayliue 
By  your  nieanes ,  canonized  in  lear- 

ne  aboz<e  is  a  reproduction  of  the  following  page  of  the  Polimanfeia. 


12  COINCIDENCES 

IV. 

Self-Confidence. 
Shakespeare's  self-confidence  was  unlimited.     He 
believed    that    his    poetry    would   live    forever.     We 
quote  from  one  of  his  sonnets: 

"  Not  marble,  nor  the  gilded  monuments 
Of  princes,  shall  outlive  this  powerful  rhyme  ; 
But  you  shall  shine  more  bright  in  these  contents 
Than  unswept  stone,  besmear'd  with  sluttish  time. 
When  wasteful  war  shall  statues  overturn, 
And  broils  root  out  the  work  of  masonry, 
Nor  Mars  his  sword,  nor  war's  quick  fire  shall  burn 
The  living  record  of  your  memory. 
'Gainst  death  and  all-oblivious  enmity 
Shall  you  pace  forth  ;  your  praise  shall  still  find  room 
Even  in  the  eyes  of  all  posterity, 
That  wear  this  world  out  to  the  ending  doom. 
So,  till  the  judgment  that  yourself  arise. 
You  live  in  this,  and  dwell  in  lovers'  eyes." 

Sonnet  SS' 

Again: 

"  Thy  eternal  summer  shall  not  fade, 

Nor  lose  possession  of  that  fair  thou  ow'st ; 

Nor  shall  Death  brag  thou  wander'st  in  his  shade, 

When  in  eternal  lines  to  time  thou  grow'st. 

So  long  as  men  can  breathe,  or  eyes  can  see. 
So  long  lives  this,  and  this  gives  life  to  thee." 

Sonnet  i8. 

Bacon's  self-confidence  was  also  unlimited.  He 
claimed  to  have  been  "born  for  the  service  of  man- 
kind." He  began  one  of  his  works  with  this  extra- 
ordinary assertion:  "  Francis  of  Verulam  thought 
thus;  and  it  was  his  opinion  that  both  the  living  and 
posterity  ought  to  know  the  method  he  pursued  and 
the  conclusions  he  reached."  In  the  first  book  of 
*  The  Advancement  of  Learning  '  he  tells  the  King 
that  inasmuch  as  "  there  has  not  been  since  Christ's 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE        is 

time  a  monarch  so  learned  in  all  literature  and  erudi- 
tion as  yourself,  there  ought,  therefore,  to  be  some 
solid  work,  fixed  memorial  and  immortal  monument 
erected  to  your  honor;"  and  such  a  work,  or  one 
tending  to  that  end,  he  goes  on  to  say,  "I  now 
present  to  your  majesty. ' '  The  two  authors  promise, 
one  to  his  friend  and  the  other  to  his  King,  through 
their  own  eulogistic  tributes  and  in  almost  identical 
language,  immortal  fame. 


14  COINCIDENCES 

V. 

Vocabulary. 

A  common  farm  laborer  in  England  uses,  it  is  said, 
five  hundred  words.  The  average  educated  business 
man,  three  thousand.  A  writer,  like  Thackeray,  five 
thousand.  The  great  poet,  scholar  and  publicist, 
John  Milton,  used  seven  thousand.  According  to 
Professor  George  L.  Craik,  a  recognized  authority 
in  this  branch  of  science,  the  author  of  the  Shake- 
speare plays  and  poems  used  twenty-one  thousand 
(inflectional  forms  not  counted).  This  is  admitted  to 
have  been  the  largest  vocabulary  ever  possessed  by 
any  individual  of  the  human  race. 

The  extent  of  Bacon's  vocabulary  has  not  been 
definitely  ascertained.  We  are  certain  only  that  it 
was  immense,  probably  the  greatest,  with  one  excep- 
tion (if  it  be  an  exception),  ever  known.  Dr.  Samuel 
Johnson,  the  lexicographer,  said  that  "a  dictionary 
of  the  English  language  might  be  compiled  from 
Bacon's  works  alone."  Bacon  made  a  study  of  com- 
parative philology  in  order  to  show,  as  he  said,  "  in 
what  points  each  language  excels  and  in  what  it 
fails,  so  that  not  only  may  languages  be  enriched  by 
mutual  exchanges,  but  also  the  several  beauties  of 
each  be  combined  and  thus  made  to  constitute  a 
model  of  speech  itself." 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE       15 


VI. 

Extent  of  Knowledge. 
We  quote  from  Dr.  H.  H.   Furness,  editor  of  the 
Variorum  Shakespeare,  now  in  course  of  publication: 

"Shakespeare  [author  of  the  Plays]  so  devoted  himself  to  the 
study  of  every  trade,  profession,  pursuit  and  accomplishment  that 
he  became  master  of  them  all,  which  his  plays  clearly  show  him  to 
have  been." 

We  quote  also  from  Francis  Bacon  in  Youth: 
"  I  have  taken  all  knowledge  to  be  my  province." 


i6  COINCIDENCES 

VII. 
Premature  Old  Age. 
The  Sonnets  were  first  mentioned  as  in  existence 
by  Frances   Meres    in    1598.     The   author   confesses 
that  he  was  then  a  prematurely  old  man,  thus: 

"  That  time  of  year  thou  may'st  in  me  behold, 
When  yellow  leaves,  or  none,  or  few  do  hang 
Upon  those  boughs  which  shake  against  the  cold, 
Bare  ruin'd  choirs,  where  late  the  sweet  birds  sang. 
In  me  thou  seest  the  twilight  of  such  day 
As  after  sunset  fadeth  in  the  west, 
Which  by-and-by  black  night  doth  take  away, 
Death's  second  self,  that  seals  up  all  the  rest." 

Sonnet  y^. 

The  dramatist  (whether  Shakspere  or  Bacon) 
could  not  have  been  over  thirty-seven  when  the 
above  was  written. 

Bacon  considered  himself  an  old  man  when  he  had 
reached  the  age  of  thirty-one.  In  a  letter  to  his 
uncle,  Burleigh,  written  in  1592,  he  said: 

"  I  am  now  somewhat  ancient ;  one  and  thirty  years  is  a  great 
deal  of  sand  in  the  hour-glass." 

We  have  the  same  sentiment  from  him,  (peculiar 
to  poets)  in  a  letter  to  Cecil  (1599): 

"  Her  Majesty  being  begun  in  my  first  years,  I  would  be  sorry 
she  should  estrange  in  my  last  years, — for  so  I  account  them, 
reckoning  by  health,  not  by  age." 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE        ly 

VIII. 
Oratory. 
The  dramatist  was  a  great  orator.  Antony's 
speech  over  the  dead  body  of  Caesar  is  famous  as 
perhaps  the  best  specimen  of  the  art  as  yet  produced 
in  the  history  of  the  world.  What  Shake-speare  says 
of  Prince  Hal  in  this  respect  would  certainly  apply 
to  himself : 

"  When  lie  speaks, 
The  air,  a  charter'd  libertine,  is  still, 
And  the  mute  wonder  lurketh  in  men's  ears, 
To  steal  his  sweet  and  honey 'd  sentences." 

A'ivg  Henry  V.,  I.  /,  4^, 

Bacon  was  also  a  great  orator.  Ben  Jonson  says 
that  "  the  fear  of  every  man  who  heard  him  was, 
lest  he  should  make  an  end. ' '  Another  contemporary 
pronounced  him,  "  the  eloquentest  man  that  was  ever 
born  in  this  island." 


i8  COINCIDENCES 

IX. 
Knowledge  of  Law. 
That  the  plays  and  poems  of  Shake-speare  are 
saturated  with  legal  principles,  technically  expressed, 
no  one,  competent  to  form  an  opinion  on  the  subject, 
can  possibly  deny.  We  quote  the  following  from 
well  known  jurists: 

"I  need  go  no  further  than  this  sonnet  (46),  which  is  so  in- 
tensely legal  in  its  language  and  imagery  that  without  a  consider- 
able knowledge  of  English  forensic  procedure  it  cannot  be  fully 
understood." 

Loi'd  Campbell,  Chief  yusiice  of  England. 

"To  Shakespeare's  law,  lavishly  as  he  propounds  it,  there  can 
be  neither  demurrer,  nor  bill  of  exceptions,  nor  writ  of  error." 

Idem. 
"  He  was  a  ripe,  learned  and  profound  lawyer,  so  saturated  with 
precedents  that  at  once  in  his  highest  and  sweetest  flights  he  colors 
everything  with  legal  dyes." 

Appleton  Morgan,  LL,  D.,  President  of  the  N.  Y.  Shakespeare  Society. 

"He  must  have  obtained  his  knowledge  of  law  from  actual 
practice."  Heard's  '  Shakespeare  as  a  Lawyer.' 

With  this  conclusion  all  must  sooner  or  later 
agree. 

Francis  Bacon  was  Lord  Chancellor  of  England, 
and,  with  possibly  one  exception  (Sir  Edward  Coke), 
the  greatest  jurist  of  his  age. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE        ig 

X. 

Early  Plays. 

Bacon  spent  the  years  of  his  childhood  partly  in 
London,  and  partly  at  his  father's  country  seat  at 
Gorhambury,  near  St.  Albans;  in  1573  he  was 
matriculated  at  Cambridge  University ;  from  1576  to 
1579  he  was  in  France;  on  his  return  to  London  he 
took  up  his  residence  as  a  law  student  at  Gray's  Inn; 
in  1584  he  entered  Parliament. 

The  first  in  order  of  composition  of  the  historical 
dramas  of  Shake-speare  was  '  King  Henry  VI.'  It 
bears  unmistakable  marks  of  the  immaturity  of  a 
great  genius.  It  bears,  also,  marks  of  the  author's 
personal  acquaintance  with  those  localities  where, 
previously  to  the  date  of  the  play.  Bacon  had  lived. 
Of  the  seventy-eight  scenes  into  which  its  three 
parts  are  divided,  thirty  are  laid  in  London,  where 
Bacon  was  born  ;  three  in  St.  Albans,  where  he  was 
brought  up;  twenty  in  France,  and  in  those  provinces 
of  France  which  he  had  visited;  one  is  laid  in  the 
Temple,  an  institution  for  lawyers  closely  associated 
with  Gray's  Inn;  and  one  in  the  Houses  of  Parlia- 
ment.^ 


'A  young  author's  first  work  almost  always  bespeaks  his  recent 
pursuits." — Samuei,  Taylor  Coleridge. 


20  COINCIDENCES 

XI. 
The  French  Language. 

The  author  of  the  Plays  knew  the  French  lan- 
guage. He  had  even  a  colloquial  use  of  it,  as  we  find 
demonstrated  in  the  drama  of  *  King  Henry  V.,' 
where  long  conversations  are  carried  on  in  that 
tongue.  This  would  seem  to  indicate  for  him  an 
actual  residence  of  some  considerable  time  in  the 
country. 

Bacon  was  sent  to  France  by  his  father  in  the  suite 
of  the  English  ambassador,  Sir  Amias  Paulet,  in 
September,  1576,  when  he  was  fifteen  years  of  age. 
He  returned  in  March,  1579,  having  acquired  a  mas- 
tery of  the  language  during  a  residence  there  of  two 
years  and  six  months. 


J 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE        21 

XIL 
English  Campaigns  in  France. 

In  his  earliest  historical  play,  written  in  or  about 
1590,  the  dramatist  devotes  himself  in  part  to  the 
English  campaigns  conducted  in  France  during  the 
reign  of  King  Henry  VI.  In  so  doing  he  displays  an 
intimate  knowledge  of  the  territory  where  the  battles 
were  fought,  including  the  cities  of  Orleans,  Blois, 
Tours,  and  Poictiers.  In  Orleans,  as  we  have  already 
pointed  out  elsewhere,  he  mentions  a  church  where 
pilgrims  were  accustomed  to  resort,  calling  it  by  the 
name  of  the  saint  to  which  it  was  dedicated.  Richard 
Grant  White  wonders  at  this  local  and  apparently 
uncalled-for  reference  in  the  play. 

Francis  Bacon  was  in  France  in  1577,  and,  for 
reasons  not  stated,  visited  the  cities  of  Orleans,  Blois 
and  Tours,  which  were  immortalized  by  the  dramatist 
for  the  parts  they  played  in  those  campaigns.  In 
Poictiers,  where  Edward,  the  Black  Prince,  won  his 
great  victory,  he  spent  three  months. 


22  COINCIDENCES 

XIII. 
Joan  of  Arc. 
That  the  author  of  the  Plays  had  resided  in  France 
in  early  life,  and  under  circumstances  that  gave  him 
imusual  access  to  some  of  the  political  records  of  the 
country,  seems  to  be  indicated  in  the  Plays  them- 
selves. 'In  'King  Henry  VI.,'  Part  i,  we  have  a 
most  extraordinary  scene  in  which  the  famous  Joan 
of  Arc  and  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  are  the  principal 
characters.  The  Duke  is  an  ally  of  the  English.  He 
is  marching  at  the  head  of  his  troops  toward  Paris, 
while  the  French  King,  also  at  the  head  of  his  troops 
and  accompanied  by  the  Maid,  appears  on  the  field 
in  the  distance.  A  herald  demands  a  parley,  and 
then  the  following  dialogue  ensues: 

"  King.      A  parley  -with  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  ! 

Bur.       Who  craves  a  parley  with  the  Burgundy? 

King.     The  princely  Charles  of  France,  thy  countryman. 

Bzir.       What  say'st  thou,  Charles?  for  I  am  marching  hence. 

Ki7ig.     Speak,  Pucelle,  and  enchant  him  with  thy  words. 

Joan.     Brave  Burgundy,  undoubted  hope  of  France  ! 
Stay,  let  thy  humble  handmaid  speak  to  thee. 

Bur.       Speak  on  ;  but  be  not  over-tedious. 

Joan.      Look  on  thy  country,  look  on  fertile  France, 
And  see  the  cities  and  the  towns  defaced 
By  wasting  ruin  of  the  cruel  foe. 
As  looks  the  mother  on  her  lowly  babe, 
When  death  doth  close  his  tender  dying  eyes, 
See,  see  the  pining  malady  of  France  ; 
Behold  the  wounds,  the  most  unnatural  wounds, 
Which  thou  thyself  hast  given  her  woeful  breast. 
O,  turn  thy  edged  sword  another  way ; 
Strike  those  that  hurt,  and  hurt  not  those  that  help. 
One  drop  of  blood  drawn  from  thy  country's  bosom 
Should  grieve  thee  more  than  streams  of  foreign  gore. 
Return  thee,  therefore,  with  a  flood  of  tears. 
And  wash  away  thy  country's  stained  spots. 
Bur.       Either  she  hath  bewitch'd  me  with  her  words 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE        23 

Or  nature  makes  me  suddenly  relent. 

Joan.     Besides,  all  French  and  France  exclaims  on  thee, 
Doubting  thy  birth  and  lawful  progeny. 
Who  join'st  thou  with  but  with  a  lordly  nation 
That  will  not  trust  thee  but  for  profit's  sake  ? 
When  Talbot  hath  set  footing  once  in  France, 
And  fashion'd  thee  that  instrument  of  ill, 
Who  then  but  English  Henry  will  be  lord, 
And  thou  be  thrust  out  like  a  fugitive  ? 
Call  we  to  mind,  and  mark  but  this  for  proof: 
Was  not  the  Duke  of  Orleans  thy  foe? 
And  was  he  not  in  England  prisoner? 
But  when  they  heard  he  was  thine  enemy, 
They  set  him  free  without  his  ransom  paid, 
In  spite  of  Burgundy  and  all  his  friends. 
See,  then,  thou  fight'st  against  thy  countrymen, 
And  join'st  with  them  will  be  thy  slaughter-men. 
Come,  come,  return  ;  return,  thou  wandering  lord  ; 
Charles  and  the  rest  will  take  thee  in  their  arms. 

Bur.       I  am  vanquished  ;  these  haughty  words  of  hers 
Have  batter'd  me  like  roaring  cannon-shot, 
And  made  me  almost  yield  upon  my  knees. 
Forgive  me,  country,  and  sweet  countrymen. 
And,  lords,  accept  this  hearty,  kind  embrace. 
My  forces  and  my  power  of  men  are  yours  ; 
So  farewell,  Talbot ;  I'll  no  longer  trust  thee." — iii.  3. 

No  sucli  interview  as  above  described  ever  took 
place.  The  duke  did,  indeed,  abandon  the  cause  of 
the  English,  but  not  until  1435,  four  years  after  the 
death  of  Joan.  But  was  this  scene,  therefore,  wholly 
and  absolutely  an  invention  of  the  dramatist?  Did 
the  author  merely  anticipate  the  duke's  defection, 
and,  by  connecting  Joan  of  Arc  with  it,  violate,  in 
spirit  as  well  as  in  letter,  the  truth  of  history  ? 

In  1780,  according  to  the  well-known  historian  of 
the  House  of  Burgundy,  M.  Brugiere  de  Barante, 
some  one  in  France  for  the  first  time  put  in  print  a 
letter,  dated  July  17,  1429,  addressed  to  the  then 
reigning  duke,  and  written  by  Joan  of  Arc.     It  con- 


24  COINCIDENCES 

tains  a  passionate  appeal  to  the  duke  to  take  pre- 
cisely the  same  course  which  is  urged  upon  him  in 
the  play.     The  letter  is  as  follows  : 

"  IHESUS  MARIA 

"  High  and  mighty  Prince,  Duke  of  Burgundy,  Joan  la  Pucelle 
prays  you,  for  the  sake  of  God  in  heaven,  my  rightful  and  sov- 
ereign Lord,  to  make  a  long  and  durable  peace  with  the  King  of 
France.  Pardon  each  the  other  -with  a  good  heart,  as  good  Chris- 
tians ought  to  do ;  if  it  please  you  to  make  war,  go  against  the 
Saracens. 

"  Prince  of  Burgundy,  I  pray  you,  I  supplicate  and  entreat  you, 
as  humbly  as  I  am  able  to  do,  to  make  no  further  war  upon  the 
kingdom  of  France  ;  withdraw  at  once  all  your  forces  from  the 
towns  and  fortresses  you  are  occupying  in  the  kingdom.  The 
noble  king  of  France  is  ready  to  make  peace  with  you,  on  any 
terms  consistent  with  his  honor ;  you  will  find  no  difficulty  with 
him. 

"I  warn  you,  however,  in  the  name  of  God  in  heaven,  my  right- 
ful and  sovereign  Lord,  and  for  the  sake  of  your  own  well-being 
and  honor,  that  you  can  win  no  battle  against  the  loyal  people  of 
France  ;  and  that  all  those  who  war  against  the  said  kingdom  of 
France,  war  against  Jesus,  the  King,  the  King  of  heaven,  and 
of  all  the  world,  my  rightful  and  sovereign  Lord.  I  pray  you  and 
beseech  you  with  clasped  hands  not  to  do  battle  or  fight  against  us, 
neither  you,  nor  your  family,  nor  your  subjects.  Be  assured  that 
however  large  an  army  you  may  bring  against  us,  you  will  gain  no 
victory  over  me ;  it  will  be  a  pity  to  fight  a  great  battle  and  shed 
the  blood  of  those  who  come  against  us. 

"  It  is  now  three  weeks  since  I  wrote  to  you  and  sent  good 
letters  by  a  herald,  asking  you  to  come  to  terms  with  his  sacred 
majesty  who,  to-day,  Sunday,  July  17,  is  in  the  city  of  Rheims.  I 
have  received  no  response  to  those  letters,  nor  indeed  any  tidings 
of  the  herald. 

"  I  commend  you  to  God.  May  he  protect  you,  if  it  so  please 
Him ;  and  I  pray  God  to  give  us  peace.  Written  at  Rheims,  the 
said  17th  of  July  [1429]." 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  existence  of  this  letter 
was  unknown  in  England  in  the  time  of  Shake- 
speare. Neither  Hall  nor  Holinshed  nor  any  other 
English  chronicler  mentions  it.     It  appears  to  have 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE        23 

been  unknown  also  in  France,  for  it  remained  in 
manuscript,  buried  among  the  ducal  papers  at  Lisle, 
the  capital  of  Burgundy,  for  a  period  of  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  after  it  was  written.  Fabert, 
who  wrote  a  history  of  the  House  of  Burgundy  in 
1687,  knew  nothing  of  it.  And  yet  this  identical 
letter  opened  the  series  of  negotiations  that  finally 
resulted  in  the  treaty  of  peace  in  1435,  as  represented 
in  the  play.  The  dramatist  simply  changed  its  form, 
preferring  a  spoken  address  in  the  open  field  as  better 
suited  to  stage  effects.  Even  for  this  he  had  an  his- 
toric basis,  for  the  duke  is  known  to  have  marched 
to  Paris  over  the  plain  of  Rouen  in  the  summer  of 
1429,  and  to  have  agreed  to  a  truce  soon  after  his 
receipt  of  the  Maid's  letter. 

Here,  then,  is  substantial  proof  that  the  author  of 
*  King  Henry  VI.'  was  acquainted  with  an  important 
fact  in  French  history  which  English  and  French 
historians  did  not  discover  until  more  than  two  cen- 
turies after  the  date  of  the  play. 

The  only  rational  explanation  of  the  mystery 
seems  to  us  to  be  this:  the  author  we  call  Shake- 
speare was  in  France  when  he  first  formed  the  plan 
of  portraying  dramatically  the  foreign  campaigns  of 
his  countrymen  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VI.;  and  that 
in  pursuance  of  this  design  he  not  only  visited  the 
scenes  made  memorable  by  those  great  campaigns  (as 
we  know  that  Bacon  did),  but  that  he  also  personally 
gathered  some  of  the  materials  for  his  undertaking 
from  the  French  and  Burgundian  national  archives. 
Not  the  slightest  evidence  exists  to  show  that  Wil- 
liam Shakspere  of  Stratford  was  ever  in  France. 


26  COINCIDENCES 

XIV. 
Sonneting. 
At  various  times,  beginning  in  or  about   1598,  the 
author  of  the  Shake-speare  plays  wrote  154  sonnets. 
They  are  the  finest  in  the  language. 

In  1599  Bacon  wrote  a  sonnet  to  Queen  Elizabeth, 
which  was  highly  praised.  Unfortunately  it  is  now 
lost. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE        27 

XV. 
John  Florio. 
In  the  year  1591,  the  well-known  Italian  teacher, 
John  Florio,  published  a  book  entitled  '  Second 
Frutes,'  in  London.  The  book  contained  a  remark- 
able sonnet,  addressed  to  Florio,  but  name  of  author 
not  given.     The  sonnet  was  as  follows: 

"  Sweet  friend  whose  name  agrees  with  thy  increase, 

How  fit  a  rivall  art  thou  of  the  Spring? 

For  when  each  brauclie  hath  left  his  flourishing, 

And  green-lockt  Sommers  shadie  pleasures  cease. 
She  makes  the  Winter's  storms  repose  in  peace, 

And  spend  her  franchise  on  each  living  thing. 

The  dazies  sprout,  the  little  birds  doo  sing, 

Hearbes,  gummes,  and  plants  doo  vaunt  of  their  release  ; 
So  when  that  all  our  English  Witts  lay  dead, 

(Except  the  Laurell  that  is  evergreeue) 

Thou  with  thy  Frutes  our  barrenness  o'respread, 

And  set  thy  flowrie  pleasance  to  be  seene. 
Sutch  frutes,  sutch  flowrets  of  moralitie. 

Were  nere  before  brought  out  of  Italie." 

PhaethoH. 

Judging  from  internal  evidence,  Professors  Baynes 
and  Minto  pronounced  this  sonnet  the  work  of  the 
author  of  the  Shakespeare  plays. 

A  few  years  later,  however,  Florio  published 
another  book  ('  A  Worlde  of  Words  '),  and  in  it  took 
occasion  to  refer  to  the  sonnet  of  1591  as  having  been 
written  "by  a  gentleman,  a  friend  of  mine,  that 
loved  better  to  be  a  poet  than  to  be  counted  so." 
That  is,  according  to  Florio  himself,  the  author  was 
high  born,  a  personal  friend  of  his,  and  a  concealed 
poet.  Bacon  answers  to  all  of  these  qualifications: 
He  was  a  gentleman  (patrician),  his  father  having 
been  Sir  Nicholas  Bacon,  Keeper  of  the  Great  Seal ; 
he   was    Florio's  friend^    having    often    entertained 


28  COINCIDENCES 

Florio  at  his  home  in  Gorhambury  ;  and  on  his  own 
confession,  as  made  to  Sir  John  Davies,  he  was  a 
"  concealed  poet."  To  the  third  of  these  points,  the 
only  one  concerning  which  there  can  be  the  slightest 
doubt,  Aubrey,  Milton's  friend,  also  testifies:  "His 
lordship  [Bacon]  was  a  good  poet,  but  concealed." 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE        2^ 

XVI. 
Growth  of  Democratic  Sentiment. 
In  the  first   draft   of   'Hamlet,'  published,  as  we 
have  said,  in  1603,  but  produced  on  the  stage  in  1586, 
the   prince,    referring   to   the    clown    in    the    grave- 
digger's  scene,  says  to  Horatio, — 

"  An  excellent  fellow,  by  the  lord,  Horatio  ; 

These  seven  years  have  I  noticed  it ;  the  toe  of  the  peasant 

Conies  so  near  the  heel  of  the  courtier 

That  he  galls  his  kibe." — v.  i. 

In  the  second  quarto  (1604)  this  speech  appears  as 
follows : 

"  By  the  Lord,  Horatio  ;  this  three  years  have  I  taken  note  of  it ; 
the  age  is  grown  so  picked  that  the  toe  of  the  peasant  comes  so 
near  the  heel  of  the  courtier,  he  galls  his  kibe." 

The  period  of  seven  years  in  the  first  edition  gives 
place  to  that  of  three  years  in  the  second. 

Bacon  returned  from  the  continent,  where  he  had 
been  living  from  boyhood,  in  1579 ;  consequently,  in 
1586,  he  had  been  an  observer  of  manners  and  cus- 
toms in  and  around  the  court  of  Elizabeth,  to  which 
he  had  had  easy  access,  for  a  period  of  seven  years. 

In  1603,  we  find  Bacon  full  of  alarm  over  the 
progress  of  democratic  sentiment  in  the  country. 
He  then  wrote  to  his  cousin,  Secretary  Cecil,  that  he 
thought  of  abandoning  politics  and  putting  himself 
wholly  "  upon  his  pen  ;"  he  even  predicted  the  revo- 
lution that  followed  forty  years  later.  This  fear  had 
its  chief  origin  in  the  last  parliament  of  Queen  Eliza- 
beth, when  he  saw  the  House  of  Commons  converted 
into  a  pandemonium  over  public  grievances. 

The  play  of  '  Hamlet '  was  re-written  and  re-pub- 
lished in  1604;  the  last  parliament  under  Elizabeth 
sat  three  years  earlier,  in  1601.  Hence  the  substi- 
tution of  this  last-named  period  for  the  first. 


so  COINCIDENCES 

XVII. 
Inns  of  Court. 

Bacon,  as  we  have  seen,  was  a  member  of  Gray's 
Inn  ;  he  had  lodgings  there  during  the  greater  part 
of  his  life.  In  close  alliance  with  Gray's  Inn  was 
the  Inner  Temple,  the  two  fraternal  institutions 
always  uniting  in  their  Christmas  revels,  and  each 
bearing  its  associate's  coat-of-arms  over  its  own  gate- 
way. Of  their  internal  affairs  the  public  knew  but 
little,  for  guests  were  seldom  admitted  behind  the 
scenes. 

The  Inner  Temple  was  governed  in  accordance 
with  some  very  remarkable  rules.  One  of  these 
rules,  handed  down  from  the  time  of  the  founders, 
the  old  Knights  Templar,  enjoined  silence  at  meals. 
Members,  dining  in  the  hall,  were  expected  to  make 
their  wants  known  "  by  signs,"  or,  if  that  were  not 
practicable,  in  low  tones  or  whispers  only. 

Another  rule  provided  that  members  should  seat 
themselves  in  the  dining-hall  in  messes  of  four,  the 
tables  being  of  the  exact  length  required  to  accom- 
modate three  messes  each.  This  arrangement  pre- 
vails to  the  present  day. 

Shake-speare  was  familiar  with  these  petty  details. 
He  laid  one  of  the  scenes  of  '  King  Henry  VI.'  in  the 
Temple  garden  itself,  where  we  have,  properly 
enough,  a  legal  discussion  on  the  rights  of  certain 
claimants  to  the  throne.  In  the  course  of  this  dis- 
cussion the  following  colloquy  takes  place  : 

" Plantaganet.    Great  lords  and  gentlemen,  what  means  this  silence? 
Dare  no  man  answer  in  a  case  of  truth? 
Suffolk.  Within  the  Temple  hall  we  were  too  loud ; 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE       j/ 

The  garden  here  is  more  convenient. 


P/an.  Thanks,  gentle  sir  ; 

Come  let  us  four  to  dinner." — ii.  4. 

Edward  J.  Castle,  Esq.,  of  London,  a  member  of 
the  Queen's  Council  and  a  life-long  resident  in  the 
Temple,  comments  on  the  above  passage  as  follows: 

"This  reference  to  the  Temple  Gardens,  not  saying  whether  the 
Inner  or  the  Middle  Temple  is  meant,  curiously  enough  points  to 
the  writer  being  a  member  of  Gray's  Inn  ;  ...  an  Inner  or  a 
Middle  Temple  man  would  have  given  his  Inn  its  proper  title." — 
Shakespeare,  Bacon,  jfonson,  and  Greene  ;  a  Study,  65  «." 

Gray's  Inn  garden  had  not  been  laid  out  when  the 
play  of  '  King  Henry  VI.'  was  written. 


32  COINCIDENCES 

XVIII. 
Commonplace  Books. 
In  one  of  the  Shake-speare  sonnets  every  scholar 
is  advised  to  keep  a  commonplace  book. 
"  Look  !  what  thy  memory  cannot  contain 
Commit  to  these  waste  blanks,  and  thou  shalt  find 
Those  children  nurs'd,  deliver'd  from  thy  brain 
To  take  a  new  acquaintance  of  thy  mind. 
These  oflfices,  so  oft  as  thou  wilt  look, 
Shall  profit  thee,  and  much  enrich  thy  book." 

Sonnet  77. 

Bacon  kept  a  commonplace  book.  He  began  it 
in  December,  1594,  and  continued  it  until  January, 
1596.  A  few  years  later  (1605),  after  lie  had  tested 
its  value  in  his  own  experience,  he  said:  "  I  am  not 
ignorant  of  the  prejudice  imputed  to  the  use  of  com- 
monplace books,  but  ...  I  hold  the  keeping  of  them 
to  be  of  great  use  in  studying." 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE       33 

XIX. 
The  Northumberland  Manuscripts. 

Some  of  Bacon's  manuscripts,  bound  together 
with  a  few  others  in  the  form  of  a  volume,  and  evi- 
dently belonging  to  the  age  of  Elizabeth,  came  to 
light  about  forty  years  ago  (1867)  in  a  private  library 
in  London.  Among  them,  according  to  the  table  of 
contents,  were  once  included  two  of  the  Shake- 
spearean plays,  'Richard  II.'  and  'Richard  III.' 
These,  however,  at  some  unknown  time  and  for  some 
unknown  reason,  had  been  abstracted  from  the  book 
and  never  recovered. 

In  close  proximity  to  these  Shakespearean  titles 
on  the  cover  the  name  of  William  Shakespeare,  as 
printed  on  the  plays,  and  not  as  it  appears  in  a  single 
instance  on  the  records  at  Stratford,  had  been  written 
and  rewritten  several  times.  Also,  the  long  Latin 
word  honor ijicah'ililudhie ^  found  in  '  Love's  Labor's 
Lost '  (a  play  first  printed  in  1598,  at  about  the  time 
this  strange  volume  was  bound  up),  is  seen  there. 
A  few  lines  from  the  Shakespearean  poem  '  Lucrece  ' 
were  also  on  the  cover.  And  the  same  person  who 
wrote  Shakespeare's  name  in  so  many  places  there 
also  wrote  Bacon's  with  it,  over  and  over  again,  thus 
showing  that,  at  the  time  when  the  Shakespearean 
plays  were  beginning  to  come  from  the  press,  these 
two  names  were  closely  associated  together  in  the 
mind  of,  at  least,  one  contemporary,  and  that  one 
having  access  in  the  most  confidential  manner  pos- 
sible to  Bacon's  private  papers. 

The  present  custodian  of  this  collection  at  the 
Northumberland  House  library  expresses  the  opinion, 
it  is  said,  that  the  MS.  contents  of  the  cover,   in- 


34  COINCIDENCES 

eluding  some  of  the  entries,  if  not  all  of  them,  that 
connect  the  book  with  the  poems  and  plays  of  Shake- 
speare, are  in  Bacon's  handwriting.  An  accomplished 
expert,  employed  in  this  line  of  work  by  the  city  of 
Boston,  Mass.,  concurs  in  this  view. 

It  thus  appears  that  the  only  known  place  in  the 
world  where  any  of  the  manuscripts  of  the  Shake- 
spearean plays  ever  existed,  was  in  Bacon's  portfolio. 


J 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE       35 


XX. 

Friendship  for  Lord  Southampton. 
Shake-speare    dedicated    his    poem     '  Venus    and 
Adonis  '  in  terms  of  social  equality  to  Lord  South- 
ampton, in  part  as  follows  : 

"Right  Honorable: 

I  know  not  how  I  shall  offend  in  dedicating  my  unpolished 
lines  to  your  lordship,  nor  how  the  world  will  censure  me  for 
choosing  so  strong  a  prop  to  support  so  weak  a  burden ;  only,  if 
your  honor  seem  but  pleased,  I  account  myself  highly  praised,  and 
vow  to  take  advantage  of  all  idle  hours,  till  I  have  honored  you 
with  some  graver  labor." 

It  appears  from  this  that  the  Earl's  consent  to  the 
dedication  had  not  been  previously  obtained ;  a  cir- 
cumstance so  improvident  in  a  play-actor  that  the 
poet  would  probably,  as  a  consequence,  have  lost  his 
ears. 

One  year  later  (1594),  this  time  in  terms  of  high 
friendship,  Shake-speare  also  dedicated  the  '  Rape  of 
Lucrece  '  to  Lord  Southampton,  thus  : 

"  The  love  I  dedicate  to  your  lordship  is  without  end,  whereof 
this  pamphlet,  without  beginning,  is  but  a  superfluous  moiety.  .  .  . 
What  I  have  done  is  yours  ;  what  I  have  to  do  is  yours  ;  being  part 
in  all  I  have,  devoted  yours.  Were  my  worth  greater,  my  duty 
would  show  greater  ;  meantime,  as  it  is,  it  is  bound  to  your  lord- 
ship, to  whom  I  wish  long  life,  still  lengthened  with  all  hap- 
piness." 

Evidently  the  first  dedication  had  given  no  offence, 
for  the  reason,  we  venture  to  say,  that  the  dedicator 
and  dedicatee  were  both  noblemen. 

Bacon  was  politically  and  socially  an  intimate 
friend  of  Lord  Southampton.  Both  were  members 
of  Gray's  Inn,  and  both  were  closely  attached  to  the 
personal  fortunes  of  the  Earl  of  Essex. 

On  the  occasion  of  Southampton's  prospective  re- 


^6  COINCIDENCES 

lease  from  imprisonment  in  the  Tower  Bacon  wrote 
him  the  following  letter  : 

"  It  may  please  your  Lordship: 

I  would  have  been  very  glad  to  have  presented  my  humble 
service  to  your  Lordship  by  my  attendance,  if  I  could  have  fore, 
seen  that  it  should  not  have  been  unpleasing  unto  you.  And  there- 
fore, because  I  would  commit  no  error,  I  choose  to  write;  assuring 
your  Lordship  (how  credible  [incredible]  soever  it  may  seem  to  you 
at  first,  yet  it  is  as  true  as  a  thing  that  God  knoweth)  that  this 
great  change  hath  wrought  in  me  no  other  change  toward  your 
Lordship  than  this,  that  I  may  safely  be  now  that  which  I  was  be 
fore.  And  so,  craving  no  other  pardon  than  for  troubling  you- 
with  this  letter,  I  do  not  now  begin,  but  continue  to  be 

Your  Lordship's  humble  and  much  devoted." 

The  estrangement  between  the  two  was  caused  by- 
Southampton's  complicity  in  Essex's  act  of  treason 
two  years  before.  They  had  previously  been  the 
closest  of  friends. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE       37 

XXI. 

Venus  and  Adonis. 

In  the  dedication  of  the  poem  *  Venus  and  Adonis,' 
published  in  1593,  to  Southampton,  the  author  calls 
this  poem  "  the  first  heir  of  his  [my]  invention."  A 
work  of  invention,  as  the  term  was  then  used  in  such 
connection  as  this,  meant  one  of  imagination;  it  was 
applied  to  poetry  and  the  drama.  It  is  curious  to 
see  into  what  a  dilemma  this  statement  of  the  author 
has  thrown  Shakespearean  scholars.  If  the  poem 
were  the  author's  first  poetic  composition,  as  he  says 
it  was,  it  must  have  ante-dated  every  Shakespearean 
play.  It  must  also  have  ante-dated  the  reputed 
poet's  arrival  in  London,  for  Shakespearean  plays 
had  been  on  the  boards  there  for  years  before  that 
more  or  less  important  event  occurred.  Richard 
Grant  V/hite  says  that  Shakspeare  brought  it  with 
him  from  Stratford  "in  his  pocket."  But  here  an- 
other and  perhaps  a  still  greater  difficulty  confronts 
us.  We  are  quite  certain  that  the  poem  could  not 
have  been  written  by  a  citizen  of  Stratford  who  had 
had  no  other  means  of  education  than  that  the  town 
afforded.  Not  a  word  of  patois  appears  in  it,  nor 
anything  inconsistent  with  the  purest,  most  elegant 
and  scholarly  English  of  the  time.  Hence  on  the  or- 
dinary hypothesis  no  escape  from  this  dilemma  is 
possible.  The  difficulty  on  that  basis  is  to  this  day 
unsolved  and  insoluble. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  Bacon  wrote  the  poem,  it 
must  be  conceded  that  he  wrote  the  plays  also.  The 
latter  down  to  the  date  of  the  poem  were  anonymous. 
In  the  two  cases  of  poems  and  plays,  however,  the 
reputation  of  authorship  was  very  different.     To  be 


S8  COINCIDENCES 

known  as  a  writer  of  plays  would  have  disgraced  and 
ruined  Bacon ;  but  for  a  poem,  especially  one  under 
a  pseudonym,  he  might  have  safely  called  it,  when- 
ever written,  the  first  of  his  inventions,  ignoring  all 
others.  The  pseudonym  did  not  appear  on  a  play 
until  1598,  after  several  plays  had  been  published  ;  it 
did  appear  on  the  first  Shakespearean  poem. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE       39 

XXII. 
The  Stage. 

The  Shakespeare  plays  began  to  appear  on  the 
stage  in  London  in  or  about  1580,  the  *  Two  Gentle- 
men of  Verona  '  certainly  as  early  as  1585,  before 
the  Queen,  and  the  '  Hamlet  '  in  1586.  They  con- 
tinued to  be  acted,  sometimes  several  in  the  same 
year  and  frequently  to  crowded  houses,  during  the 
life  time  of  the  author,  whoever  the  latter  may  have 
been. 

The  difference  in  this  respect  between  the  two  can- 
didates for  the  honors  of  their  authorship  is  signifi- 
cant. 

William  Shakspere,  the  play-actor,  lived  in  a 
community  to  which  theatrical  performances  were 
obnoxious.  In  1602  the  town  authorities  of  Strat- 
ford prohibited  everything  of  the  kind  under  a 
penalty  of  ten  shillings;  the  penalty  was  increased 
to  ten  pounds  (about  $500  in  our  money)  in  1612. 
At  the  last  mentioned  date  Shakspere  had  returned 
to  Stratford,  had  been  living  there  continuously  for 
eight  years,  and  yet,  though  the  richest  man  in 
town,  he  does  not  seem  to  have  exerted  any  influence 
■whatever  in  favor  of  such  performances,  even  of  one 
of  his  own  plays  (if  he  ever  wrote  any),  before  his 
fellow-townsmen.  At  his  death  he  possessed  no 
book,  dramatic  or  otherwise,  and  nothing  to  indicate 
that  he  had,  or  ever  had  had,  as  author,  any  interest 
in  the  drama. 

Francis  Bacon  cherished  a  high  opinion  of  the 
stage  as  a  means  of  inculcating  virtue.  He  recom- 
mended that  the  drama  be  taught  in  the  schools.  He 
even  drafted  a   theatre  building  to  be  erected  near 


40  COINCIDENCES 

him,  and  provided  under  it  a  dressing-room  for  the 
actors  as  large  as  the  auditorium  itself.  His  brother 
Anthony,  who  was  in  full  sympathy  with  him  on  all 
points,  removed  at  one  time  from  Gray's  Inn,  where 
he  had  been  living  with  Francis,  to  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Bull's  Inn  where  he  could  conveniently  at- 
tend a  theatre,  and  one  accustomed  to  put  the  Shake- 
speare plays  on  its  boards.  The  two  brothers  had 
such  a  penchant  for  the  business  of  play-acting  that 
their  mother,  a  puritan,  severely  chided  them  for  it. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE        41 

XXIII. 
Use  of  Others'  Plots. 

The  dramatist  is  noted  for  his  frequent  use  of 
others'  plots  on  which  to  base  his  own  dramas.  For 
instance  : 

'  The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona  '  was  founded  on 
Jorge  de  Montemayor's  Spanish  romance  of    Diana. 

'  Hamlet,'  on  the  History  of  Hamblet,  originally 
composed  in  Latin  by  the  Dane,  Saxo  Grammaticus. 

*  Othello,'  on  an  Italian  novel  by  Giraldo  Cinthio. 

'  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well,'  on  one,  also  in  Ital- 
ian, by  Boccaccio. 

'Twelfth  Night,'  on  one  by  Bandello,  either  in 
the  original  Italian,  or  a  French  version  of  it. 

'The  Winter's  Tale,  on  Greene's  Pandosto. 

'  Romeo  and  Juliet,'  on  one  in  Massutio's  collec- 
tion. 

'  Timon  of  Athens',  on  Lucian  in  untranslated 
Greek. 

'Julius  Caesar,'  on  Plutarch. 

'  Anthony  and  Cleopatra,'  also  on  Plutarch. 

'  Cymbeline,  on  Boccaccio.' 

In  Bacon's  first  sketch  of  his  history  of  the  reign 
of  Henry  VII.  he  explains  why  he  did  not  begin  that 
work  farther  back  in  time.  It  was  because  he  would 
then  fail  to  get  the  help  he  wanted  from  historians 
who  had  preceded  him.  He  was  content  to  leave  to 
earlier  writers  the  simple  actions  of  the  times  to  be 
treated,  provided  that  he  himself  could  enrich  the 
narrative  (as  he  said)  "with  the  counsels,  and  the 
speeches,  and  the  notable  peculiarities."  Hence 
his  frequent  use  of  the  plots  of  others.  This  was 
exactly  what  Shake-speare  did. 


42  COINCIDENCES 

XXIV. 
Love's  Labor's  Lost. 

'  Love's  Labor's  Lost  '  is  one  of  the  earliest  of  the 
Shakespeare  dramas.  Mr.  Staunton  assigns  the  date 
of  its  composition  to  a  period  somewhere  between 
1587  and  1591.  The  best  evidence  indicates  that  it 
was  written  in  or  about  1588. 

The  scene  is  laid  at  the  court  of  Navarre,  a  small 
rude  kingdom  situated  between  France  and  Spain 
among  the  Pyrenees  Mountains.  The  writer  of  the 
play  seems  to  have  been  strangely  familiar  not  only 
with  this  distant  and  at  that  time  little-known  terri- 
tory, but  also  with  its  internal  politics,  for  he  has  in- 
troduced, as  dramatis  personoe^  the  king  himself  and 
the  leading  councillors  of  state,  mostly  under  their 
proper  names.  The  king  was  at  a  later  day  the  fam- 
ous Henry  IV.  of  France,  but,  as  he  was  living  when 
the  play  was  published  in  1598,  Shake-speare  has 
given  him  the  name  of  Ferdinand.  Of  the  king's 
councillors,  we  have  also  in  the  play  Biron  and  Long- 
aville  (Longueville),  both  of  whom  were  active  in 
the  cause  of  Henry,  and  Boyet  (Bois),  who  was  the 
king's  marshal  at  Paris  and  who  came  to  Navarre  in 
the  train  of  the  princess. 

The  question  arises,  how  did  the  dramatist  acquire 
this  intimate  knowledge  of  the  court  of  Navarre  in 
1588,  at  so  early  a  period  in  the  career  of  its  king? 

William  Shakspere  came  to  London  from  an  illit- 
erate town,  himself  wholly  illiterate,  in  or  about 
1586,  one  year  or  so  only  before  the  composition  of 
the  play.  On  the  other  hand,  Anthony  Bacon  went 
to  the  Continent  in  1579,  and  for  five  years  —  to  wit, 
from  1585  to  1590  —  was  an  honored  guest  at  Henry's 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE       43 

court  in  Navarre,  "  on  terms  of  close  intimacy,"  says 
the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography  (ii.  325), 
"with  the  king's  councillors,"  and  in  confidential 
correspondence  with  his  brother  Francis  in  London. 

The  author  of  the  play  had  knowledge,  also,  of  a 
very  obscure  event  in  the  history  of  Navarre,  which, 
it  is  safe  to  say,  was  unknown  in  England  in  the 
time  of  Shake-speare,  especially  to  persons  who  had 
never  crossed  the  channel.  We  find  it  in  the  chron- 
icles of  Enguerrand  de  Monstrelet,  where  it  is  thus 
narrated  :  — 

"  Charles,  King  of  Navarre,  came  to  Paris  to  wait  on  the  King. 
He  negotiated  so  successfully  with  the  King  and  his  Privy  Council 
that  he  obtained  a  gift  of  the  castle  of  Nemours,  with  some  of  its 
dependant  castlewicks,  which  territory  was  made  a  duchy.  He  in- 
stantly did  homage  for  it,  and  at  the  same  time  surrendered  to  the 
King  the  Castle  of  Cherbourg,  the  county  of  Evreux,  and  all  other 
lordships  he  possessed  within  the  kingdom  of  France,  renouncing 
all  claim  or  profit  in  them  to  the  King  and  to  his  successors,  on  con- 
sideration that  with  this  duchy  of  Nemours  the  King  of  France 
engaged  to  pay  him  two  hundred  thousand  gold  crowns  of  the 
King  our  Lord." — i.  54. 

This  is  given  in  the  play  as  follows  :  — 

"  Madame,  your  father  here  doth  intimate 
The  payment  of  a  hundred  thousand  crowns, 
Being  but  the  one  half  of  an  entire  sum 
Disbursed  by  my  father  in  his  wars. 
But  say  that  he  or  we  (as  neither  have) 
Received  that  sum;  yet  there  remains  unpaid 
A  hundred  thousand  more."  —  ii.   i. 

The  Chronicles  of  Monstrelet  were  not  translated 
into  English  until  1809,  or  more  than  two  hundred 
years  after  the  play  was  written.  That  Shake-speare, 
the  dramatist,  was  perfectly  competent  to  read  Mon- 
strelet in  the  original  French,  however,  there  is  sujffi- 
cient  evidence  in  the  play  itself.  He  puns  twice  in 
that    language ;     once     when     he     uses     the    word 


44  COINCIDENCES 

"  capon"  in  the  double  sense  of  a  fowl  and  a  love- 
letter,  and  again  the  word  "  point"  as  the  tip  of  a 
sword  and  a  strong  French  negative.  The  play  is 
also  full  of  sentences  in  Latin,  Spanish,  and  Italian, 
so  much  so  that  Professor  Stapfer  thinks  it  "over- 
cumbered  with  learning,  not  to  say  pedantic."  An- 
other commentator  finds  in  it  a  "manifest  ostenta- 
tion of  book-learning."  Francis  Bacon,  it  must  be 
remembered,  spent  nearly  three  years  in  France  and 
at  other  places  on  the  continent  in  his  youth,  after  a 
course  of  study  at  Cambridge  University.    , 

Singularly  enough,  also,  the  embassy  of  the  prin- 
cess itself  had  an  historical  basis.  Catherine  de 
Medici  made  a  journey  from  Paris  to  Navarre,  "  with 
many  beautiful  ladies,"  it  is  expressly  stated,  "  in 
her  train,"  in  1586,  of  which,  it  is  quite  safe  to  say, 
there  could  not  have  been  any  public  account,  known 
in  England,  in  1588.  This  took  place,  however, 
during  Anthony  Bacon's  residence  in  Navarre. 

In  '  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well,'  we  read,  — 

"  I  am  St.  Jacques'  pilgrim,  thither  gone."  —  ill.  4. 

St.  Jacques  had  a  church  dedicated  to  him  at 
Orleans,  to  which  in  the  time  of  Francis  Bacon's  visit 
to  that  city  pilgrims  were  used  to  resort.  This  fact 
could  scarcely  have  then  been  known  in  England, 
certainly  not  with  such  prominence  as  to  suggest  the 
statement  in  the  text;  for,  as  Richard  Grant  White 
says,  "it  has  no  relation  whatever  to  the  dramatic 
progress,  the  interest,  or  even  the  vraisemblance  of 
the  scene.  For  Shake-speare's  purpose  one  saint 
was  as  good  as  another,  —  St.  George,  St.  Andrew, 
excepted." 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE        45 

Mr.  Georg^e  James  of  Birmingham,  Eng.,  calls  at- 
tention to  the  use  of  the  word  I'ejtvoy  in  this  play. 
The  word  is  in  the  highest  degree  technical.  Ety- 
mologically  considered,  it  means  simply  what  is 
sent,  but,  as  defined  by  the  dramatist  himself,  it  is 
the  last  couplet  of  a  song,  — 

"  An  epilogue  or  discourse,  to  make  plain 
Some  obscure  precedence  that  hath  tofore  been  sain."  —  iii.  i. 

Such  songs,  according  to  a  custom  peculiar  to 
France,  were  written  in  competition  for  prizes,  and, 
it  is  needless  to  add,  would  have  been  unknown  at 
that  time  to  a  foreigner  who  had  not  studied  French 
lyric  poetry  on  the  spot. 

Mr.  James  has  also  been  able  to  connect  one  of  the 
principal  characters  of  the  play  historically  with 
Francis  Bacon.  He  identifies  Antonio  Perez,  the 
well-known  Spanish  refugee,  with  Don  Armado. 
Perez  visited  England  in  1593,  and  at  once,  joining 
the  followers  of  Essex,  was  presented  to  the  Bacon 
brothers,  with  whom  for  a  time  he  seems  to  have 
been  on  terms  of  intimacy.  The  intimacy,  however, 
was  of  short  duration,  for  the  Spaniard  speedily  de- 
veloped so  much  affectation  and  bombast  in  the  courtly 
circles  to  which  he  had  been  admitted  that  he  soon 
fell  into  contempt.  Essex  left  London  to  avoid  him. 
In  the  following  year  Perez  published  a  book  under 
the  assumed  name  of  Raphael  Peregrino,  an  un- 
doubted allusion  to  which  Mr.  James  discovers  in 
'  Love's  Labor's  Lost.'  Holophernes  is  ridiculing 
Don  Armado,  who,  like  Perez,  is  a  "  traveller  from 
Spain  "  and  noted  for  his  bombastic  style  of  writing, 
and  says  of  him,  — 

"  He  is  too  picked,  too  spruce,  too  affected,  too  odd,  as  it  were^ 
\.oo peregrinate,  as  I  may  call  it."  —  v.  I. 


46  COINCIDENCES 

As  if  to  make  the  reference  more  pointed  and  un- 
mistakable, Sir  Nathaniel  replies,  — 

"  A  most  singular  and  choice  epithet," 

and  at  once  enters  it  in  his  note-book.      Don  Armado 
is,  of  course,  a  caricature  of  Perez. 

'Love's  Labor's  Lost'  was  first  printed  in  1598, 
with  the  statement  on  its  title-page  that  it  had  been 
"  newly  corrected  and  augmented."  This  parody  on 
Perez'  sobriquet  was  evidently  one  of  the  augmenta- 
tions. 

But  it  is  in  the  motif  or  raison  d^efre  of  the  comedy 
that  we  find  the  strongest  proof  of  its  Baconian 
authorship.  '  Love's  Labor's  Lost  '  stands,  indeed, 
as  one  of  Bacon's  earliest  protests  against  the  barren 
philosophy  of  his  time. 

According  to  the  play,  the  King  of  Navarre  and 
his  nobles  pledge  themselves  under  oath  to  retire 
from  the  world  for  three  years  and  give  their  whole 
attention  during  that  time  to  study.  They  are  to 
lay  aside  all  the  cares,  obligations,  and  pleasures  of 
life  for  this  purpose.  The  comedy  turns  upon  the 
utter  futility  of  such  a  scheme.  It  is  a  travesty  on 
the  kind  of  learning,  and  particularly  on  the  methods 
of  acquiring  learning,  then  in  vogue.  For  ages  men 
had  sought  knowledge  by  turning  their  backs  upon 
nature  and  upon  human  life.  All  that  they  had 
wanted  was  Aristotle  and  the  Fathers ;  all  that  they 
acquired  was,  in  the  language  of  Hamlet,  "words, 
words,  words." 

In  the  '  Advancement  of  Learning  '   Bacon  attri- 
butes   to  this  method    of   study  what    he  calls    the 
"  first  distemper  of  learning."     He  says  :  — 
"  Men  have  withdrawn  themselves  too  much  from  the  contempla- 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE        47 

tion  of  nature  and  the  observations  of  experience,  and  have  tumbled 
up  and  down  in  their  own  reasons  and  conceits. 

"  As  many  substances  in  nature  which  are  solid  do  putrefy  and 
corrupt  into  worms,  so  it  is  the  property  of  good  and  sound  knowl- 
edge to  putrefy  into  a  number  of  subtle,  idle,  unwholesome  and  (as 
I  may  term  them)  vermiculate  questions,  which  have  indeed  a  kind 
of  quickness  and  life  of  spirit,  but  no  soundness  of  matter  or  good- 
ness of  quality.  This  kind  of  degenerate  learning  did  chiefly  reign 
amongst  the  schoolmen;  who  had  sharp  and  strong  wits,  abund- 
ance of  leisure,  and  small  variety  of  reading  ;  but  their  wits  being 
shut  up  in  the  cells  of  a  few  authors  (chiefly  Aristotle,  their  dic- 
tator), as  their  persons  were  shut  up  in  the  cells  of  monasteries  and 
colleges,  aud  knowing  little  history,  either  of  nature  or  time,  did, 
out  of  no  great  quantity  of  matter  and  infinite  agitation  of  wit, 
spin  out  unto  us  those  laborious  webs  of  learning  which  are  extant  in 
their  books.  For  the  wit  and  mind  of  man,  if  it  work  upon  matter, 
which  is  the  contemplation  of  the  creatures  of  God,  worketh  ac- 
cording to  the  stuff,  and  is  limited  thereby  ;  but  if  it  work  upon 
itself,  as  the  spider  worketh  his  web,  then  it  is  endless,  and  brings 
forth  cobwebs  of  learning,  admirable  for  the  fineness  of  thread  and 
work,  but  of  no  substance  or  profit."  —  Book  I. 

Here,  then,  is  the  key  to  the  drama  of  *  Love's 
Labor's  Lost.'  It  was  Bacon's  first  indictment  against 
the  Aristotelian  philosophy  as  it  had  been  studied 
by  the  schoolmen,  and  as  it  was  still  studied  and 
taught  in  his  own  time.  The  lesson  it  teaches  is 
this  :  that  the  closer  the  scholar  keeps  himself  in 
touch  with  his  fellow-men,  the  more  successful  will 
he  be  in  the  pursuit  of  truth.  The  rays  of  the  sun 
give  out  no  heat  till  they  strike  the  earth  ;  so  those 
of  truth  cannot  warm  or  fructify  till  they  come  into 
actual  contact  with  human  life. 

Bacon  left  the  University  of  Cambridge  in  his  six- 
teenth year,  before  the  completion  of  his  course  and 
without  a  degree.  He  did  this,  as  he  afterwards  ex- 
plained to  Dr.  Rawley,  because  he  was  disgusted 
with  the  methods  of  study  which  prevailed  there, 
and  which,  it  appears,  are  ridiculed  in  '  Love's 
Labor's  Lost.' 


48  COINCIDENCES 

XXV. 
Doctor  Caius. 
One  of  the  most  amusing  characters  in  Shake- 
speare is  Dr.  Caius  in  the  'Merry  Wives  of  Windsor.' 
He  is  an  irascible,  hot-headed  French  physician  who 
is  ready  to  draw  his  rapier  on  the  slightest  provoca- 
tion against  anybody  who  comes  in  his  way,  but  with 
a  special  antipathy  toward  the  honest  Welsh  parson, 
Sir  Hugh  Evans.  Seeing  in  Evans  a  possible  rival 
for  the  hand  of  Mistress  Anne  Page,  he  sends  a  chal- 
lenge to  him,  charging  the  messenger  who  carries 
it,— 

"You  jack'nape,  give-a  this  letter  to  Sir  Hugh  ;  by  gar,  it  is  a 
challenge  ;  I  vill  cut  his  troat  in  de  Park  ;  and  I  vill  teach  a  scurvy 
jack-a-nape  priest  to  meddle  —  by  gar,  I  vill  kill  de  jack  priest." 

—  i.4. 

At  the  appointed  time  and  place  for  the  duel  the 
parson  fails  to  appear,  whereupon  the  following 
colloquy  occurs  between  Caius  and  his  servant  :  — 

"■Cains.     Vat  is  de  clock,  Jack? 

•'  Rzigby.     'T  is  past  the  hour,  sir,  that  Hugh  promised  to  meet. 

"  Caius.  By  gar,  he  has  save  his  soul,  dat  he  is  no  come  ;  he  has 
pray  his  Pible  -well,  dat  he  is  no  come  ;  by  gar.  Jack  Rugby,  he  is 
dead  already  if  he  be  come. 

'■'■Rugby.  He  is  wise,  sir  ;  he  knew  your  worship  would  kill  him, 
if  he  came. 

"  Caius.  By  gar,  de  herring  is  no  dead  so  as  I  vill  kill  him.  Take 
your  rapier,  Jack  ;  I  vill  tell  you  how  I  vill  kill  him. 

^'^  Rugby.     Alas,  sir,  I  cannot  fence. 

"  Caius.     Villany,  take  your  rapier."  —  ii.  3. 

On  another  occasion  he  threatens  Simple,  whom 
Mistress  Quickly  for  his  safety  had  hidden  in  a  closet, 
with  instant  death. 

It  may  astonish  some  of  our  readers  to  learn  that 
this  ridiculous  character  in  the  play  was  drawn  from 
life.     The  prototype  was   Dr.  John    Caius  of  Cam- 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE       4^ 

bridge  University,  a  physician,  the  re-founder  of 
Gonville  Hall  (which  still  in  part  bears  his  name), 
and  in  his  relations  with  the  students  an  exceedingly 
choleric  and  revengeful  instructor.  His  true  name 
was  Kaye,  but  as  he  had  been  educated  abroad,  and 
was  inclined  to  ape  foreign  manners,  he  changed  his 
English  cognomen  into  its  Latin  form,  Caius,  (pro- 
nounced Keyes),  by  which  he  was  then  and  is  now 
generally  known.  The  Dictionary  of  National  Biog- 
raphy says  of  him  : 

"Caius's  relations  •with,  the  society  over  which  he  ruled  at  Cam- 
bridge were  less  happy.  Lying,  as  he  did,  under  the  suspicion  of 
aiming  at  a  restoration  of  Catholic  doctrine,  he  was  an  object  of 
dislike  to  the  majority  of  the  fellows,  and  could  with  diflficulty 
maintain  his  authority.  He  retaliated  vigorously  on  the  malcon- 
tents. He  not  only  involved  them  in  law-suits  which  emptied  their 
slender  purses,  but  visited  them  with  personal  castigations,  and 
even  incarcerated  them  in  the  stocks.  Expulsions  were  frequent, 
not  less  than  twenty  of  the  fellows,  according  to  the  statement  of 
one  of  their  number,  having  suffered  this  extreme  penalty." 

To  complete  the  likeness  between  the  two  charac- 
ters, dramatic  and  historical,  we  find  that  Caius  had 
an  especial  antipathy  to  Welshmen,  for  in  the  ordi- 
nances of  the  college  founded  by  him,  Welshmen  are 
expressly  excluded  from  the  privileges  of  fellowship. 

It  appears  then  — 

1.  That  both  were  physicians. 

2.  That  both  came  from  abroad. 

3.  That  both  were  phenomenally  quarrelsome, 
even  to  the  extent  of  inflicting  chastisement  upon 
others  with  their  own  hands. 

4.  That  both  hated  Welshmen. 

Now,  how  did  William  Shakspere  of  Stratford  be- 
come acquainted  with  these  idiosyncrasies  of  a  Cam- 
bridge professor,  and  how  did  he  acquire  sufficient  in- 


so  COINCIDENCES 

terest  in  the  subject  to  induce  him,  twenty-nine  years 
after  the  professor's  death,  to  hold  the  man  up  to 
public  ridicule  in  a  play  ?  Dr.  Caius  died  in  July, 
1573,  at  which  time  the  reputed  poet  was  living  at 
Stratford,  nine  years  old.  The  controversy,  as  it 
raged  in  Cambridge  and  as  it  is  reflected  in  the  play, 
was  a  personal  one,  and  in  the  absence  of  newspapers 
or  equivalent  means  of  disseminating  general  infor- 
mation could  hardly  have  been  known  beyond  uni- 
versity circles. 

Francis  Bacon  was  the  nephew  of  Lord  Treasurer 
Burghley,  to  whom  the  students  appealed  for  protec* 
tion  against  their  oppressor.  He  entered  the  uni- 
versity in  April,  1573,  three  months  before  Dr.  Caius' 
death  and  in  the  height  of  the  prevailing  excitement. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE       5/ 

XXVI. 
Magna  Charta. 

In  the  historical  drama  of  '  King  John '  Shake- 
speare does  not  mention  Magna  Charta,  the  granting 
of  which  was  the  great  event  of  the  reign.  The  fair 
inference  may  be  that  he  was  not  in  sympathy  with 
such  a  movement. 

Francis  Bacon  also  in  all  his  writings  does  not 
allude  to  the  subject.  He  despised  the  people  and 
thought  them  unworthy  of  taking  any  part  in  public 
affairs.  He  stood  inflexibly,  even  against  the  nobles, 
for  the  royal  prerogatives.  Any  attempt  to  extort 
concessions  from  a  King  by  force  was  his  special  ab- 
horrence. 


52  COINCIDENCES 

XXVII. 

Humphrey,  Duke  of  Gioucester. 

A  singular  instance  of  what  must  be  regarded  as  a 
misjudgment  of  character  is  found  in  the  drama  of 
'  King  Henry  VI.'  Humphrey,  Duke  of  Gloucester, 
was  the  youngest  son  of  Henry  IV.  On  the  death  of 
his  brother,  Henry  V.,  he  became,  in  the  absence  of 
the  Duke  of  Bedford,  Protector  of  the  Kingdom,  and 
was  therefore  practically  for  many  years  at  the  head 
of  the  government.  His  administration  of  public 
affairs,  however,  was  very  unsatisfactory.  The 
country  was  kept  in  a  continual  turmoil  by  his  ill 
temper  and  his  fondness  for  intrigues.  "  His  greedi- 
ness," says  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography, 
"  was  notorious.  He  was  unprincipled,  factious  and 
blindly  selfish."  The  introduction  into  the  country 
contrary  to  law  of  the  practice  of  torture  in  judicial 
proceedings  was  due  to  him.  He  persecuted  Wick- 
liffe's  followers,  who  were  driven  to  hold  their  con- 
venticles for  worship  and  to  read  the  bible  in  peas- 
ants' huts,  saw-pits  and  field  ditches,  at  the  risk  of 
being  burned  alive  at  the  stake.  Even  the  reputa- 
tion for  patriotism  which  he  acquired  among  the 
vulgar  was  false,  for  it  was  his  scandalous  marriage 
with  the  Countess  of  Hainault  that  led,  as  he  must 
have  known  that  it  would  lead,  to  the  estrangement 
of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  and  to  the  consequent  expul- 
sion of  the  English  from  France.  At  the  meeting  of 
Parliament  at  St.  Edmondsbury  in  1447  he  was 
arrested  for  treason,  and  the  next  morning  was  found 
dead,  in  his  bed.     His  death  was  natural. 

The  Duke  is  represented  very  differently  in  the 
play.     There  he  is  always  the   "good   Duke  Hum- 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE       S3 

phrey."  In  every  quarrel  he  is  the  innocent  victim, 
while  the  Queen,  the  Duke  of  Suffolk  and  Cardinal 
Beaufort,  his  brother,  are  the  wicked  conspirators. 
As  to  the  circumstances  of  Gloucester's  death  which, 
according  to  the  dramatist,  was  a  deliberate  murder, 
parliament  having  been  summoned  to  an  out-of-the- 
way  place  for  this  special  purpose,  we  again  quote 
from  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography: 

"His  health,  ruined  by  debauchery,  had  long  been  weak.  The 
portraits  of  him  depict  a  worn  and  prematurely  old  man.  He  had 
already  been  threatened  with  palsy,  and  the  sudden  arrest  and 
worry  might  well  have  brought  about  a  fatal  paralytic  stroke. 
Fox's  contemporary  narrative  of  the  parliament  at  Bury,  the  best 
and  fullest  account  of  his  last  days,  says  no  word  of  foul  play.  .  .  . 
The  fact  that  Suffolk  was  never  formally  charged  with  the  murder 
in  the  long  list  of  crimes  brought  up  against  him  when  he  fell,  is 
almost  conclusive  of  Gloucester's  innocence.  .  .  .  Cardinal  Beau- 
fort certainly  could  have  had  no  part  in  the  tragedy.  Bitter  as  was 
the  Duke's  emnity  against  him,  the  Cardinal  would  never  have 
done  a  deed  which  was  so  contrary  to  the  interests  of  the  I^ancas- 
trian  dynasty,  and  which  opened  the  way  for  the  ambitious  schemes 
of  the  rival  house.  A  few  weeks  later  the  great  Cardinal  died. 
The  scene  in  which  Shakespeare  portrays  the  "  black  despair  "  of 
his  death  has  no  historical  basis." 

The  explanation  of  this  great  discrepancy  gen- 
erally given,  is,  that  the  Duke  founded  a  public  li- 
brary at  Oxford  and  thus  won  the  hearts  of  scholars. 
This  is  wholly  inadequate  and  inadmissible. 

Francis  Bacon  lived  at  Gorhambury  in  the  imme- 
diate vicinity  of  St.  Albans.  The  Duke  of  Gloucester 
also  lived  at  St.  Albans.  The  Duke  and  his  wife 
were  admitted  to  the  fraternity  of  the  great  Abbey 
there  in  1424.  A  stately  arched  monument  of  free- 
stone, adorned  with  figures  of  his  royal  ancestors, 
marks  his  last  resting  place  near  the  shrine.  He 
was,  therefore,  identified  in  the  closest  manner  with 
the  town  and  particularly  with  its  religious  institu- 


54  COINCIDENCES 

tions.  The  Abbot  himself  venerated  his  memory.  If 
a  good  opinion  of  him  could  have  existed  anywhere 
in  England,  it  would  naturally  be  found  at  St. 
Albans.  The  play  was  a  youthful  production,  written 
at  a  time  of  life  when  such  impressions  are  strongest. 
Furthermore,  in  considering  a  case  of  this  kind  it 
must  never  be  forgotten  that  the  portrayal,  not  of 
history,  but  of  human  nature,  is  the  chief  aim  and 
end  of  dramatic  art. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE       s5 

XXVIII. 
The  Merchant  of  Venice 

In  this  drama  a  Jew,  who  had  loaned  money  to  a 
Venetian  merchant  and  for  non-payment  at  maturity 
exacted  a  penalty  that  would  have  caused  death,  is 
held  up  to  scorn  and  ridicule  for  all  time. 

Francis  Bacon  once  borrowed  money  of  a  Jew 
named  Simpson,  and  was  sued  for  it  in  the  spring  of 
1598.  Soon  afterward  the  creditor,  contrary  to 
agreement  and  under  circumstances  intended  to  in- 
flict personal  disgrace,  had  Bacon  arrested  on  the 
Street  and  held  in  custody. 

The  play  was  entered  on  Stationers'  register  in 
July,  1598. 


56  COINCIDENCES 

XXIX. 

*  Troilus  and  Cressida.' 

The  play  of  '  Troilus  and  Cressida  '  was  first  pub- 
lished in  1609.  A  singular  circumstance  attended 
its  appearance.  The  first  copies  that  were  issued 
from  the  press  contained  a  preface  which,  for  some 
reason  not  acknowledged,  became  unsatisfactory  to 
those  "  grand  possessors  "  (as  they  were  called)  who 
controlled  the  manuscript,  and  it  was  accordingly 
for  the  remainder  of  the  edition  withdrawn.  Shake- 
spearean scholars  have  hitherto  sought  in  vain  for  an 
explanation  of  this  curious  anomaly.  The  truth, 
however,  seems  to  us  to  be  quite  apparent.  The  play 
bears  on  its  surface,  as  well  as  in  its  texture,  the 
proof  of  its  having  been  the  work  of  a  lawyer.  At 
the  same  time  we  can  easily  understand  that  a  sug- 
gestion to  this  effect  in  the  preface  might  not  have 
been  agreeable  to  all  concerned.  And  yet  here  it  is, 
almost  in  so  many  words  : 

**  Were  but  the  vain  names  of  commedies  chang'de 
for  the  titles  of  commodities,  or  of  playes  for  pleas 
[pronounced  in  those  days  plays\  you  should  see  all 
those  grand  censors,  that  now  stile  them  such 
vanities,  flock  to  them." 

That  is,  were  they  but  pleas,  (or  the  work  of  a 
lawyer),  people  of  quality  would  flock  to  see  them. 

Francis  Bacon  was  a  lawyer. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE       57 


XXX. 
Julius  C^sar. 

The  dramatist  seems  to  have  had  a  special  admira- 
tion for  Julius  Caesar.  He  not  only  wrote  one  of  his 
greatest  tragedies  on  Caesar's  life,  but  he  also  men- 
tions Caesar,  generally  in  approbation  of  him,  thirty- 
nine  times  in  his  poems  and  plays. 

Bacon's  admiration  of  Julius  Caesar  was  unbounded. 
He  wrote  a  highly  appreciative  treatise  on  Caesar's 
life,  besides  referring  to  him  approvingly  thirty-four 
times  in  his  other  writings. 

The  two  agree,  also,  as  to  the  cause  of  the  con- 
spiracy that  ended  in  Caesar's  assassination,  as  the 
following  respective  citations  from  them  will  show  : 

Bacon:  "  How  to  extinguish  envy  he  knew  excellently  well,  and 
thought  it  an  object  worth  purchasing  even  at  the  sacrifice  of 
dignity.  .  .  .  He  did  not  put  off  his  mask,  but  so  carried  himself 
that  he  turned  the  envy  upon  the  other  party.  At  last,  whether 
satiated  with  power  or  corrupted  by  flattery,  he  aspired  likewise  to 
the  external  emblems  thereof,  the  name  of  king  and  the  crown, 
which  turned  to  his  destruction." 

Imago   Civilis  Julii  CcEsaris. 

Shakespeare: 

"All  the  conspirators,  save  only  he  [Brutus], 
Did  that  they  did  in  envy  of  great  Caesar." 

The   Tragedy  of  Julius  Casar,  V,  V,  bq. 

The  assassination  itself  they  described  in  almost 
the  same  language  : 

Bacon  :  "  They  came  about  him  as  a  stag  at  bay." 
Shakespeare  :  "  Here  wast  thou  bay'd,  brave  hart." 

Both  of  our  authors  seem  to  have  laid  great  stress 
upon  Caesar's  reformation  of  the  Roman  calendar. 
Bacon  says  of  it : 

"  So  we  receive  from  him,  as  a  Monument  both  of  his  power  and 
learning,  the  then  reformed  computation  cf  the  year  ;  well  express- 


S^  COINCIDENCES 

ing  that  he  took  it  to  be  as  great  a  glory  to  himself  to  observe  and 
know  the  law  of  the  heavens  as  to  give  law  to  men  upon  the  earth." 

Advancement  of  Learning. 

The  author  of  the  plays  after  his  manner  illustrates 
the  popular  confusion  that  necessarily  attended  the 
introduction  of  a  new  calendar  among  the  people  of 
Rome,  as  follows  : 

The  Tragedy  of  Juuus  C^sar. 
Act  II,  Scene  I. 

The  Conspirators  at  Brutus'  House  before  sunrise;  Brutus  and  Cassius 
•apart,  whispering. 

"Decius.  Here  lies  the  east ;  doth  not  the  day  break  here  ? 

Casca.      No. 

Cinna.    O  !  pardon,  sir,  it  doth  ;  and  yon  grey  lines, 

That  fret  the  clouds,  are  messengers  of  day. 
Casca.     You  shall  confess  that  you  are  both  deceiv'd. 

Here,  as  I  point  my  sword,  the  sun  arises ; 

Which  is  a  great  way  growing  on  the  south, 

Weighing  the  youthful  season  of  the  year. 

Some  two  months  hence,  up  higher  toward  the  north* 

He  first  presents  his  fire,  and  the  high  east 

Stands  as  the  Capitol,  directly  here." 

Not  a  single  editor  of  the  play  or  commentator 
on  it  has,  so  far  as  we  know,  ventured  a  word  to  ex- 
plain the  grounds  of  this  disputation  among  the  con- 
spirators or  even  to  account  for  its  existence.  The 
difference  of  opinion  was  due,  as  we  have  already  in- 
timated, to  the  recent  introduction  of  a  new  calendar, 
by  which  nearly  80  days  had  been  added  to  the  civil 
year,  to  make  it  coincide  with  the  course  of  the  sun. 
The  conspirators  had  simply  spoken  from  the  points 
of  view  of  different  calendars. 

Shakespearean  editors,  however,  unable  to  appre- 
ciate the  text,  have  resorted,  as  usual  under  such  cir- 
cumstances, to  mutilations  of  it.     Brutus,  awaking 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE       59 


early  on  the  morning  of  the  fifteenth,  or  Ides,  of 
March,  and  uncertain  what  day  it  was,  had  the  fol- 
lowing colloquy  (as  Shakt-Hjpeare  wrote  it)  with  his 
valet: 

"Brutus.     Get  you  to  bed  again,  it  is  not  day. 

Is  not  tomorrow,  boy,  the  first  of  March? 
Lucius.        I  know  not,  sir. 
Brutus.       Look  in  the  calendar  and  bring  me  word. 


Lucius.     Sir,  March  is  wasted  fifteen  days." 

Editor  Lewis  Theobald  (1733),  unable  to  compre- 
hend how  Brutus  could  commit  such  an  error  as  to 
mistake  the  fifteenth  of  March  for  the  first,  promptly 
substituted  for  the  latter  the  word  /cZe.s,  and  has  been 
followed  by  editors  generally  from  that  time  to  the 
present,  a  period  of  one  hundred  and  seventy-two 
years.  Probably  none  of  them  ever  heard  that  under 
the  operations  of  the  old  calendar,  which  did  not  ter- 
minate until  January  ist,  46  B.  C,  the  Roman  year 
had  been  advancing  at  the  rate  of  eleven  minutes  and 
fourteen  seconds  per  annum  against  true  time  for 
hundreds  of  years.  Theobald  (the  hero  of  the  Dun- 
ciad)  also  tampered  with  Lucius'  reply,  making  Lu- 
cius say  that  March  had  wasted  fourteen  instead  of 
fifteen  days,  because  it  was  very  early  in  the  morning 
of  the  fifteenth  when  Lucius  spoke.  In  this  respect 
also  he  has  been  followed  by  other  editors,  though 
none  of  them  could  hardly  have  been  ignorant  that 
the  law  recognizes  no  parts  of  days.  The  author  of 
the  play  was  a  lawyer. 

The  Earl  of  Beaconsfield  once  seriously  asked  the 
question,  "Did  Shakespeare  ever  write  a  single  whole 
play?"  A  safe  answer,  considering  the  parts  that  ed- 
itors have  taken  and  that  they  still  take  in  correct- 
ing (!)  Shakespeare,  would  be,  no. 


So  COINCIDENCES 

XXXI. 
The  Reign  of  King  Henry  VII. 

With  the  exception  of  '  King  John,'  the  historical 
dramas  of  Shake-speare  extend  consecutively  from 
the  reign  of  Richard  II.  to  that  of  Henry  VIII.,  a 
period  of  i8i  years.  One  break,  and  one  only, 
occurs  in  the  series,  viz.,  that  of  Henry  VII.,  which 
is  omitted. 

Bacon  wrote  one  historical  work,  that  on  the  reign 
of  Henry  VII.  He  began  it  abruptly  with  the  vic- 
tory of  Bosworth  Field,  making  but  slight  reference 
to  the  causes  and  events  that  led  up  to  it.  Shake- 
speare leaves  us  at  this  exact  point  in  the  drama  pre- 
ceding '  Richard  III.'  This  ends  with  the  crowning 
of  Henry  on  the  battle-field  by  Lord  Stanley  who 
plucks  the  crown  for  the  occasion  from  Richard's 
"dead  temples."  Bacon's  history  begins  with  the 
crowning  of  Henry  on  the  battle-field  by  Lord 
Stanley,  who  finds  the  crown  "among  the  spoils." 
The  two  accounts  seem  to  be  tongued  and  grooved 
together,  as  though  from  one  hand. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE       6i 

XXXII. 
Henry  the  Eighth. 
'Henry  VIII.'  was  also  one  of  those  dramas  of 
Shakespeare,  sixteen  in  number,  that  were  printed 
for  the  first  time  in  the  folio  of  1623.  Possibly  it 
was  in  existence  in  an  earlier  draft  in  1613,  for  at 
the  burning  of  the  Globe  Theatre  on  the  afternoon 
of  June  29  of  that  year,  a  play,  described  by  a  con- 
temporary as  "representing  some  principal  pieces  in 
the  reign  of  Henry  VIII."  was  in  course  of  perform- 
ance there,  under  the  title  of  'All  is  True.'  Whether 
this  be  so  or  not,  the  drama,  as  we  now  have  it, 
seems  in  some  important  particulars  to  have  been 
suggested  by  the  condition  of  things  under  King 
James  in  162 1.  It  treats  of  fallen  greatness,  of 
Queen  Catharine,  the  divorced  wife  of  Henry,  and  of 
Lord  Chancellor  Wolsey,  who  was  degraded  from  his 
high  office,  stripped  of  the  seals,  and  ordered  to  be 
imprisoned  in  the  Tower. 

The  argument  for  Bacon's  authorship  of  this  play 
may  be  rested  in  part  on  three  points : 

1.  The  author  was  indebted  for  some  of  his  mate- 
rials directly  to  Cavendish's  'Life  of  Wolsey,'  which, 
though  written  in  1557,  was  not  printed  until  1641, 
or  eighteen  years  after  the  appearance  of  the  play. 
As  Bacon  was  one  of  Wolsey's  successors  in  office,  he 
would  naturally  have  had  access  to  this  manuscript, 
while  a  play-actor  would  not. 

2.  It  is  practically  certain  that  in  1622-23,  Bacon 
was  engaged  upon  a  work  pertaining  to  the  reign  of 
Henry  VIII.  He  completed  his  history  of  Henry 
VII.  in  October,  162 1.  This  was  so  much  admired 
that    Prince    Charles  immediately  requested  him  to 


62  COINCIDENCES 

write  also  a  history  of  Henry  VIII.  Bacon  prom- 
ised to  do  so.  Accordingly,  in  January,  1623,  he 
applied  to  the  proper  authorities  for  the  loan  of  such 
documents  as  might  be  in  the  public  archives  relat- 
ing to  that  monarch's  reign.  The  application  was 
formally  granted.  At  this  time.  Bacon  appears  to 
have  been  actually  at  work  in  real  or  apparent  fulfil- 
ment of  his  undertaking,  for  under  date  of  February 
10,  Mr.  Chamberlain  writes  :  — 

"  Lord  [Bacon]  busies  himself  about  books,  and  hath  set  out  two 
lately  *  Historia  Ventorum  '  and  '  De  Vita  et  Morte,'  with  promises  of 
more.  I  have  not  seen  either  of  them  because  I  have  not  leisure  ; 
but  if  the  life  of  Henry  VIII.,  which  they  say  he  is  about,  might 
come  out  after  his  own  manner,  I  should  find  time  and  means 
enough  to  read  it." 

A  few  days  later  (February  21),  Bacon  himself 
writes  to  Buckingham,  who  had  gone  to  Spain  with 
Prince  Charles,  asking  to  be  remembered  to  the 
Prince,  "  who,  I  hope  ere  long,  will  make  me  leave 
King  Henry  VIII.  and  set  me  on  work  in  relation  to 
his  Highness's  heroical  adventures." 

The  next  reference  to  the  subject  is  also  in  one  of 
Bacon's  own  letters.     Acknowledging  the  receipt  of 
a  communication  from  Toby  Matthew,  June  26,  1623, 
he  says  :  — 

"Since  you  say  the  Prince  hath  not  forgot  his  commandment 
touching  my  history  of  Henry  VIII.,  I  may  not  forget  my  duty. 
But  I  find  Sir  Collier,  who  poured  forth  what  he  had  in  my  other 
work,  somewhat  dainty  of  his  materials  in  this." 

It  appears,  however,  that  notwithstanding  all 
these  repeated  implications  to  the  effect  that  he  was 
engaged  upon  a  history  of  Henry  VIII.,  he  was  act- 
ually doing  no  such  thing.  He  did,  indeed,  make  a 
beginning  ;  he  gathered  materials  ;  he  dictated  one 
morning  about  two  pages  ;    and  then  he  wrote  to 


BACON  AND  SFIAKESPEARE       6j 

the  prince,  apologizing  for  not  going  on  with  the 
work  and  for  dropping  it  altogether.  But  did  he 
drop  it  ?  From  whose  pen  came  those  wonderful 
panegyrics  of  Queen  Elizabeth  and  King  James  that 
were  printed  six  months  afterward  in  the  drama  of 
'  Henry  VIII.,'  and  that  can  be  exactly  paralleled  in 
the  '  Advancement  of  Learning  '  and  the  Infelicem 
Memoriam  EUzahethcti?  Those  heart-breaking  la- 
mentations over  fallen  greatness,  such  as  Bacon  must 
have  still  been  uttering  in  private  over  his  downfall 
in  162 1?  Those  entrancing  visions  of  peace  and 
plenty,  of  honor  and  gladness  for  the  English  people, 
characteristic  of  one  in  whom  forgiveness  of  injuries 
was  a  cardinal  virtue,  and  love  of  mankind  an  ab- 
sorbing passion  ? 

3.  Queen  Catherine,  the  first  wife  of  King  Henry 
VIII.,  made  her  residence  during  the  latter  part  of 
her  life  at  Kimbolton  in  Huntingdonshire.  The 
Duke  of  Manchester,  to  whom  the  place  belongs, 
published  in  1864  a  valuable  collection  of  papers, 
found  in  the  castle  and  at  Simancas  in  Spain,  which 
show  that  of  all  the  numerous  and  gifted  persons 
who  have  written  of  that  unfortunate  princess,  two, 
and  two  only,  have  correctly  adjudged  her  character. 
These  two,  thus  in  singular  agreement,  are  Francis 
Bacon  and  the  author  of  the  Shake-speare  dramas. 
The  Duke  says  :  — 

"  So  far  as  concerns  all  popular  ideas  of  her,  Catherine  is  a  creat- 
ure of  the  mist.  Shakespeare  and  Bacon,  the  highest  judges  and 
firmest  painters  of  character,  have,  it  is  true,  described  her,  if  only 
lightly  and  by  the  way,  as  a  woman  of  flesh  and  blood ;  the  flesh 
rather  stubborn,  the  blood  somewhat  hot ;  as  a  lady  who  could 
curse  her  enemies  and  caress  her  friends ;  a  princess  full  of  natural 
graces,  virtues,  and  infirmities.  Had  the  portraits  by  Shakespeare 
and  Bacon  been  painted  in  full,  they  would  have  been  all  that  we 


64  COINCIDENCES 

could  hope  or  wish.  But  they  are  only  fragments  of  the  whole  ; 
and  the  work  of  all  minor  hands  is  nothing,  or  worse  than  nothing. 
In  these  inferior  pencillings,  the  woman  is  concealed  beneath  the 
veil  of  a  nun.  In  place  of  a  girl  full  of  sun  and  life,  eager  to  love 
and  to  be  loved,  enamoured  of  state  and  pomp,  who  liked  a  good 
dinner,  a  new  gown,  above  all  a  young  husband ;  one  who  had  her 
quarrels,  her  debts,  her  feminine  fibs,  and  her  little  deceptions, 
even  with  those  who  were  most  near  and  dear  to  her  ;  a  creature  to 
be  kissed  and  petted,  to  be  adored,  and  chidden,  and  ill-used  —  all 
of  which  Catherine  was  in  the  flesh  —  we  find  a  cold,  grim  Lady 
Abbess,  a  creature  too  pious  for  the  world  in  which  her  lot  was 
cast,  too  pure  for  the  husband  who  had  been  given  to  her.  Such  a 
conception  is  vague  in  outline  and  false  in  spirit.  Catherine  was 
every  inch  a  woman  before  she  became  every  inch  a  queen."  — 
Court  and  Society,  i.  5. 

This  judgment  is  confirmed  by  high  literary  au- 
thority : 

"The  whole  story  of  the  Queen,  as  now  told  from  the  ample 
Simancas  text,  is  in  perfect  harmony  with  what  Shakespeare  and 
Bacon  say  of  her." —  The  Athenatwi,  January  16,  1867. 

Lord  Montagu  of  Kimbolton,  first   Earl  of  Man- 
chester, was  one  of  Bacon's  dearest  friends. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE        65 

XXXIII. 
Insanity. 
In  the  famous  interview  between  Hamlet  and  his 
mother  in  the  chamber-scene,  already  referred  to,  the 
prince  sees  the  ghost  of  the  murdered  king  and 
addresses  it.  The  Queen,  unable  to  hear  or  see  any- 
thing to  account  for  her  son's  conduct,  finally  ex- 
claims, — 

"  This  is  the  very  coinage  of  your  brain  ; 
This  bodiless  creation  ecstacy 
Is  very  cunning  in."  —  iii.  4. 

Hamlet  replies  : 

"  It  is  not  madness 
That  I  have  utter'd  ;  bring  me  to  the  test 
And  I  the  matter  will  re-word  ;  which  madness 
Would  gambol  from." 

Dr.  Wigan,  a  specialist,  points  out  the  scientific 
pertinence  of  this  reply.  Hamlet  asks  to  be  put  to  a 
test,  and  suggests  one  known  only  to  experts,  viz.  : 
to  repeat,  word  for  word,  what  he  had  previously 
uttered.  Inability  to  recall  a  train  of  thought  is 
said  to  be  a  special  mark  of  insanity,  even  in  the 
mildest  form  of  the  disease. 

Other  passages  in  the  plays  show  the  writer's  ex- 
ceptional knowledge  in  this  branch  of  therapeutics. 
When  King  Lear,  for  instance,  falls  into  a  deep 
sleep  in  the  fourth  act  and  gives  signs  of  immediate 
restoration  to  health,  the  physician  in  charge  orders 
music,  thus  : 

{EnU}-  Lear  in  a  chair  carried  hy  servants^ 
Doctor.     Ay,  madam  ;  in  the  heaviness  of  sleep 

We  put  fresh  garments  on  him. 
Kent.       Be  by,  good  madame,  when  we  do  awake  him  ; 

I  doubt  not  of  his  temperance. 
Cordelia.  Very  well.  [A/usic. 

Doct.        Please  you,  draw  near.  Louder  the  music  there." — iv.7. 


66  COINCIDENCES 

In  the  'Tempest,'  also,  Prospero  refers  to  the 
effects  of  music  on  the  insane,  as  follows  : 

[Solemn  music, 
"  A  solemn  air,  and  the  best  comforter 
To  an  unsettled  fancy,  cure  thy  brains."  —  v.  i. 

No  less  clear  are  Richard  II. 's  words  on  the  sub- 
ject in  his  last  monologue  : 

"This  music  mads  me  ;  let  it  sound  no  more  ; 
For  though  it  have  holp  madmen  to  their  wits, 
In  me  it  seems  it  will  make  wise  men  sad."  —  v.  4. 
"Shakespeare  knew,  however  he  acquired  the  knowledge,  the 
phenomena  of  insanity  as  few  have  known  them." —  Goethe. 

Bacon  wrote  to  Queen  Elizabeth  in  the  spring  of 
1600  that  his  mother  was  "  much  worn  "  ;  soon 
afterward,  perhaps  at  the  death  of  her  son  Anthony 
in  1601,  she  became  violently  insane,  and  continued 
so  under  the  sole,  unremitting  care  of  her  only  sur- 
viving son  Francis  until  her  death  in  1610.  It  was 
during  this  period  that  '  King  lycar  '  and  the  revised 
version  of  '  Hamlet  '  were  written.  The  author's 
portrayal  of  insanity  in  these  plays  is  still  regarded 
by  specialists  as  a  psychological  marvel. 

"Shakespeare  must  have  had  an  opportunity  of  observing  [a 
person  or]  persons  afflicted  in  mind.  Prof.  Neumann  very  justly 
remarks  concerning  Ophelia's  case  :  '  Whence  could  Shakespeare 
have  known  that  persons  thus  afflicted  decorate  themselves  with 
flowers,  offer  flowers  to  other  people,  and  sing  away  to  themselves ; 
I  myself  cannot  conceive  where.'  Dr.  Bucknill  even  maintains 
that  waichiiig  pe7-sons  mentally  afflicted  must  have  been  a  favorite  sttidy  of 
Shakespeare's" — Prof.  ElzE'S  William  Shakespeare^  ^o^. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE        67 
XXXIV. 

BOSPHORUS. 

The   tragedy   of    '  Othello  '    was    first   printed   in 

quarto  in  1622  (six  years  after  the  reputed  author's 

death),  though  it  had  been  in  existence  as  an  acting 

play  for  ten  or  twelve  years  preceding.     In  the  folio 

of   1623,  it  appears    in   a    revised    form,   containing 

among  other  striking  improvements  one  hundred  and 

sixty    additional    lines,    due    without    the   slightest 

doubt  to  the  dramatist  himself.     Among  these  lines 

we  find  the  following  : 

"  Like  to  the  Pontic  sea, 
"Whose  icy  current  and  compulsive  course 
Ne'er  feels  retiring  ebb,  but  keeps  due  on 
To  the  Propontic  and  the  Hellespont."  — iii.  3. 

It  seems  to  be  probable,  then,  that  sometime  between 
the  date  of  the  first  appearance  of  the  play  on  the 
stage  (1610)  and  that  in  the  Folio  (1623)  the  author's 
attention  had  been  called  to  a  tidal  peculiarity  of 
the  Mediterranean  Sea ;  namely,  that  the  current 
through  the  Bosphorus  flows  continuously  in  one  di- 
rection, from  east  to  west.  William  Shakspere  died 
in  Stratford  six  years  before  the  first  publication  of 
the  play  in  its  original  draft,  which  was,  as  we  have 
said,  in  1622.  Francis  Bacon  investigated  the  tides 
of  the  Mediterranean  in  or  about  1616,  and  in  his 
treatise  on  the  subject,  entitled  De  Fluxu  et  Refluxu 
Maris^  made  especial  reference  to  the  fact  that 
through  the  Bosphorus  the  tide  never  ebbs. 

It  is  curious,  also,  that  the  two  seas,  east  and  west 
of  the  Bosphorus,  are  mentioned  under  the  same 
names  by  both  authors : 

"  Pontus  and  Propontis  "  —  Bacon. 

"  Pontic  and  Propontic  "  —  Shakk-SpEare. 


68  COINCIDENCES 

Also,  the  same  minute  particulars  regarding  the  cur- 
rent : 

"  Pursues  its  course  " —  Bacon. 

"  Keeps  due  on  "  —  Shake-Speare. 

"  With  extraordinary  swiftness."  —  Bacon. 

"  With  violent  pace."  —  Shakk-SpEark. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE        6g 

XXXV. 
Sir  John  Falstaff. 
The  great  dramas  of  '  King  Henry  IV.'  (two  parts) 
and  '  King  Henry  V.'  were  developed  from  a  preced- 
ing one  written  by  the  same  author  in  his  youth, 
covering  both  of  these  reigns,  entitled  '  The  Famous 
Victories  of  Henry  the  Fifth.'  In  this  early  produc- 
tion the  buffoon  was  named  Sir  John  Oldcastle,  an 
historical  personage  who  lived  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years  before  the  time  of  Shake-speare,  and  was  a 
highly  respectable  martyr  to  the  cause  of  religion. 
The  name  was  brought  along  and  used  on  the  stage 
in  the  new  play,  as  we  now  have  it,  of  '  King  Henry 
IV.,'  Part  First ;  but,  before  the  play  was  printed  (in 
1598)  it  was  withdrawn  (probably  under  compulsion 
from  the  royal  court)  and  that  of  Sir  John  Falstaff 
substituted  for  it.  The  latter  must  therefore  have 
been  selected  in  or  about  1597.  At  this  time  or 
thereabouts,  perhaps  while  the  manuscript  of  the 
play  was  in  the  hands  of  the  printer,  Bacon  was 
prosecuting  an  important  suit  at  law  before  the 
courts  in  London,  with  an  associate  named  John  Hal- 
staff.  The  origin  of  the  name  in  the  play  has  been 
for  more  than  a  hundred  years  the  subject  of  a  great 
deal  of  wild  and  absurd  speculation. 


70  COINCIDENCES 

XXXVI. 
An  Idiosyncracy. 
Bacon  liad  a  habit,  which  he  derived  from  his 
mother,  of  writing  on  special  occasions  in  one  lan- 
guage with  the  alphabet  of  another.  This  he  did 
whenever  he  wished  to  conceal  something  he  had 
in  mind  from  people  generally  or  from  those  not 
in  the  secret.  The  languages  selected  for  this 
purpose  were  Greek  and  English.  A  notable  in- 
stance is  found  among  his  private  papers  pre- 
served in  the  library  of  the  Lambeth  palace  in 
London,  in  which  he  seems  to  hint  that  there  was  a 
reason,  although  under  the  circumstances  he  could 
not  make  it  known,  why  he  offered  no  defence  against 
the  charges  of  bribery  brought  against  him  before 
the  House  of  Lords.  We  have  the  explanation,  how- 
ever, from  his  servant  Bushel,  who  says  that  his 
master  made  no  defence  because  the  King,  fearing  its 
effect  upon  himself  and  his  favorite,  the  Duke  of 
Buckingham,  privately  forbade  it.  What  Bacon 
wrote  was  as  follows  : 

0(^  /xy  o(f)(f)ep<;,  (f)ap  /8e  lt  (f>pofx  fxe  to  aay,  Sax  vepLafx 
Kopviq;  ve^ar  Kevcrvpa  KoXvfx^a';-  ^vt  l  (olW  aay  Oar  t 
ave  yoo8  coappavT  (f)op-  6ey  coepe  vor  Oe  ypearecTT  0(f)(f)ev- 
hep<;  IV  lapaeX  vttov  cjrjojx  Oe  waXX  (f)eX\- 

Converting  the  Greek  letters  into  the  correspond- 
ing English  ones  in  the.  foregoing,  we  have  the  fol- 
lowing transcription  : 

Of  my  offence,  far  be  it  from  me  to  say,  da(  veniam  corvis;  vexat  cen- 
sura  Columbas:  but  I  will  say  that  I  have  good  -warrant  for :  they 
were  not  the  greatest  offenders  in  Israel  upon  whom  the  wall  fell. 

Lady  Bacon  and  her  son  often  used  this  device  in 
their   private  correspondence.     In   compositions  in- 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE        71 

tended  for  the  general  public  the  order  of  substitu- 
tion would  naturally  be  reversed. 

The  dramatist  did  the  same  thing.  In  the  Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor  he  represents  the  Host  as  inviting 
some  friends  to  accompany  him  to  a  field  of  honor 
where  a  duel  was  to  be  fought.  After  some  parley 
he  repeats  the  invitation  thus  : 

"  Will  you  go,  An-heires  ?  " 
The  word  An-heires  has  been  an  inexhaustible 
puzzle  to  all  modern  editors  of  the  play.  They  are 
agreed  that  the  word  is  not  English,  that  it  appears 
in  the  text  by  a  printer's  blunder,  and  that  the  best 
substitute  possible  must  be  found  for  it.  Accordingly 
in  the  following  named  editions,  all  of  good  and  reg- 
ular standing,  we  have  the  line  given  respectively 
thus  : 

Kemble,  Heath,  Campbell:   "  Will  you  go  on,  hearts?  " 
Stanton,    Dyce,    Verplauck,    Theobald:    "Will    you    go,   Myn- 
heers? " 

"  Warburton  :  "  Will  you  go  on,  heris  ?  " 

Malone  :   "  Will  you  go  on  and  hear  us  ?  " 

Steevens  :  "  Will  you  go  on,  heroes?" 

Boaden,  Singer  :  "  Will  you  go  on,  Cavaliers  ?  " 

Collier  :  "  Will  you  go  on,  here?" 

White  :  "  Will  you  go  on,  Min-heers?  " 

Becket  :  '"Will  you  go  on,  eh,  sir?  " 

Halliwell-Phillips,  Hudson  :  "  Will  you  go  on,  Sirs  ?  " 

Knight :  "Will  you  go  on,  heers  ?  " 

Harness:  Will  you  go,  Cavalieres?" 

The  word,  which  Mr.  White  pronounces  "  an  in- 
comprehensible combination  of  letters,"  is  the  Greek 

OArq^   (gentleman),    dpepes  (gentlemen),    in   which    English 

letters  of  the  alphabet  are  substituted  for  the  Greek. 
The  meaning  is  — 

Will  you  go,  gentlemen? 


72  COINCIDENCES 

XXXVII. 
The  Spanish  Language. 

Shakespeare  gave  to  the  name  of  the  Bermuda 
Islands  the  Spanish  pronunciation  Bermoothes.  This 
was  before  the  islands  were  settled  by  the  English 
and  before  the  name  could  have  become  extensively 
known  in  England.  Even  in  the  Jourdan  pamphlet, 
published  in  London  in  1610,  a  short  time  only  before 
the  play  was  written,  giving  an  account  of  the  au- 
thor's and  Sir  George  Somers'  shipwreck  there,  one 
year  earlier,  the  name  is  printed  with  a  d. 

Singularly  enough,  we  find  a  statement  of  about 
this  date  in  Bacon's  works  that  "  the  Spaniards  dis- 
like thin  letters  and  change  them  immediately  into 
those  of  a  middle  tone,"  thus  flattening  the  d  in  Ber- 
muda into  the  medium  intervocal  z  (th).  Bacon  was 
a  member  of  the  company  whose  ship  was  wrecked. 
Both  authors  seem  to  have  been  familiar  with  the 
principles  of  the  Spanish  language. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE        73 

XXXVIII. 
The  Italian  Language. 
"  When    Othello  in   the  dawning  of    his  jealousy 
chides   Desdemona   for  being  without   the  handker- 
chief he  had  given  her  as  his  first  love-token,  he  tells 
her,  — 

'  There's  magic  in  the  web  of  it. 
A  sibyl  that  number'd  in  the  world 
The  sun  to  course  two  hundred  compasses, 
In  her  prophetic  fury,  sew'd  the  work.' 
"The  phrase,    'prophetic  fury,'   is  so  striking,  so  picturesque, 
and  so  peculiar  that  in  itself  it  excites  remark  and  remains  upon 
the  memory  as  the  key-note  of  the  passage.     Now,  in  the  Orlando 
Furioso,    .    .    .   we  have  the  identical  thought,  and,  in  their  Italian 
form,  the  identical  viOxAs  furor propheHco,  used  in  the  description  of 
a   woman,   sibyl-like,    if  not   a   sibyl,    weaving   a   cloth   of   magic 
virtues.     There  is,  too,  in  both  passages  the  idea  of  a  great  lapse  of 
time.     .     .     .     There   was   no   other   translation    of    the    Orlando 
Furioso  into  English  in  Shakespeare's  time  than  Sir  John  Harring- 
ton's, published  in  1591,  and  in  that  the  phrase,  '  prophetic  fury,' 
or  any  one  like  it,  does  not  occur.  A'.  G.  IVhile. 

"The  great  majority  of  the  dramatis  personcs  in  Shakespeare's 
comedies,  as  well  as  ifn  some  of  his  tragedies,  have  Italian  names, 
and  many  of  them  .  .  .  are  as  Italian  in  nature  as  in  name. 
The  moonlight  scene  in  *  The  Merchant  of  Venice  '  is  Southern,  ta 
every  detail  and  incident.  '  Romeo  and  Juliet '  is  Italian  through- 
out, alike  in  coloring,  incident  and  passion.  In  the  person  of 
Hamlet  Shakespeare  even  appears  as  a  critic  of  Italian  style." 

Gervinus. 

Bacon  made  free  use  of  Italian  literature,  quoting 
it  in  its  own  language. 


74  COINCIDENCES 

XXXIX. 

The  Greek  Language. 

The  dramatist  punned  in  Greek.  In  the  tragedy 
of  'Anthony  and  Cleopatra,'  Cleopatra  pronounces 
the  following  eulogy  on  Anthony,  thinking  him 
dead  : 

"  His  legs  bestrid  the  ocean  ;  his  rear'd  arm 
Crested  the  world  ;  his  voice  was  propertied 
As  all  the  tuned  spheres,  and  that  to  friends; 
But  when  he  meant  to  quail  and  shake  the  orb, 
He  was  as  rattling  thunder.     For  his  bounty, 
There  was  no  winter  in't ;  an  Anthony  *t  was, 
That  grew  the  more  by  reaping." —  V,  2,  82. 

Mark  Anthony  always  boasted  that  he  was  a  de- 
scendant of  Hercules,  being  named  indeed,  as  he 
claimed,  for  Hercules'  son,  Anthos.  Shake-speare 
knew  this,  for,  mentioning  Hercules  in  this  same 
play,  he  adds,  — 

"Whom  Anthony  lov'd." 

The  word  anthos  in  Greek  means  flower,  thus  sug- 
gesting to  the  dramatist  an  analogy  between  An- 
thony's bounty  and  a  flowering  plant,  — 

"That  grew  [grows]  the  more  by  reaping." 

Unfortunately,  editors  of  Shake-speare,  in  igno- 
rance of  their  author  and  of  his  knowledge  of  the 
Greek  language,  have  regarded  the  word  Antliony  in 
this  connection  as  a  printer's  blunder,  and  for  nearly 
200  years  have  actually  substituted  autumn  for  it, 
making  this  substitution  simply  and  solely  because 
this  word  seems  to  bear  some  slight  typographical 
resemblance  (in  number  of  letters  at  least)  to  the 
original.  They  are  not  to  be  chided,  of  course,  for 
doing  all   in  their  power  to  extinguish  one  of  the 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE        75 

finest  metaphors  in  Shake-speare,  for  their  prejudices 
on  the  subject  of  Shake-speare's  scholarship  blinded 
their  eyes  to  it.  But  with  this  example  before  us, 
what  becomes,  may  we  ask,  of  the  "sacred  text"  ? 

Further  proof  of  the  dramatist's  knowledge  of 
Greek  is  found  in  'King  Lear'.  The  King,  referring 
to  Edgar,  says,  — 

"  I'll  talk  a  word  with  this  same  learned  Theban,"  — 

evidently  alluding  to  Simmias  in  the  Phaedo,  whom 
Socrates  calls  "  my  Theban  friend,"  and  with  whom 
he  discusses  the  nature  of  the  human  soul.  The  dia- 
logues of  Plato  had  not  been  translated  into  English 
when  the  play  was  written. 

It  is  unnecessary,  of  course,  to  show  that  Bacon 
was  familiar  with  Greek.  It  was  household  knowl- 
edge in  the  Bacon  family,  and  exactly  the  kind  of 
knowledge  possessed  by  the  author  of  the  Shakespeare 
plays. 


76  COINCIDENCES 

Epilepsy. 

Bacon  had  a  curious  notion  regarding  epilepsy. 
Treating  of  this  disease  (Nat.  Hist.,  x,  966)  he  attributes 
it  to  "  gross  vapors  rising  and  entering  the  cells  of 
the  brain." 

Shake-speare  had  the  same  singular  belief.  In 
the  drama  of  '  Julius  Caesar '  he  represents  the  Dicta- 
tor as  having  had  an  attack  of  epilepsy  (falling  sick- 
ness) in  the  market-place  of  Rome,  caused  by  the 
foul  breath  of  the  multitude  of  people  surrounding 
him,  thus : 

Casca.  "The  rabblement  hooted,  and  clapp'd  their  chopt 
hands,  and  threw  up  their  sweaty  night-caps,  and  uttered  such  a 
deal  of  stinking  breath,  because  Caesar  refus'd  the  crown,  that  it 
had  almost  choked  Caesar  ;  for  he  swoonded,  and  fell  down  at  it. 
And  for  mine  own  part,  I  durst  not  laugh,  for  fear  of  opening  my 
lips,  and  receiving  the  bad  air. 

Cassizis.     But,  soft,  I  pray  you.     What,  did  Caesar  swound  ? 

Casca.  He  fell  down  in  the  market-place,  and  foam'd  at  mouth, 
and  was  speechless. 

Brutus     'T  is  very  like  he  hath  the  falling-sickness." 

Modern  editors  print  the  line,  last  quoted  above, 
thus  : 

"  'Tis  very  like  ;  he  hath  the  falling-sickness,"  — 

converting  Brutus'  conjecture  into  a  statement  of 
fact.  This  is  unwarrantable.  Brutus  had  no  in- 
formation, so  far  as  we  know,  that  Caesar  was  thus 
afflicted,  for  Caesar  had  had  but  one  or  two  attacks  of 
the  disease,  and  those  in  recent  and  distant  cam- 
paigns. Plutarch  mentions  it,  but  Plutarch  wrote 
his  life  of  Caesar  150  years  after  Caesar's  death. 

Epilepsy  was  very  prevalent  among  the  Romans, 
so  much  so  that  the  Senate  had  a  standing  rule 
immediately  to  adjourn  whenever  one  of  its  members 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE        77 

was  seized  with  it.  The  line  in  question,  f/.s  icritten 
by  Shakespeare^  exactly  fits  Casca's  description  of 
what  had  taken  place  in  the  Forum  ;  why  garble  it  ? 

No  historical  authority  exists  for  this  remarkable 
scene  in  the  market-place,  the  connection  between 
foul  breath,  '*  entering  the  cells  of  the  brain,"  and  an 
attack  of  epilepsy  being  wholly  due  to  a  private  theory 
of  the  dramatist,  in  which  Francis  Bacon  agreed  with 
him. 

And  even  in  minute  details  respecting  the  kind  of 
odors  suited  to  the  purpose  the  two  authors  were  also 
agreed,  thus  : 

"  They  clapped  their  chopped  hands  and  threw  up  their  sweaty 
night-caps,  and  uttered  such  a  deal  of  stinking  breath  that  it  had 
almost  choked  Caesar." — Shakespeare, 

"  If  such  foul  smells  be  made  by  art  and  by  the  hand,  they  consist 
chiefly  of  man's  flesh  or  sweat  putrified;  for  they  are  not  those  stinks 
which  the  nostrils  straight  abhor  and  expel  that  are  most  pernicious; 
but  such  airs  as  have  some  similitude  with  man's  body." — Bacon. 

"  The  rabblement  hooted;  the  common  herd  was  glad." — 

Shakespeare. 

"  These  empoisonments  of  air  are  the  more  dangerous  in  meetings 
of  people,  because  the  much  breath  of  people  doth  further  the  in- 
fection. Therefore,  when  any  such  thing  is  feared,  it  were  good 
those  public  places  were  perfumed  before  the  assemblies." — Bacon, 


78  COINCIDENCES 

XLI. 
Central  Fire  in  the  Earth. 
The  tragedy  of  '  Hamlet  '  was  written  in  or  about 
1586,  but  not  printed  until  1603.  In  this  first  draft 
of  the  play  we  find  a  letter,  written  by  the  prince  to 
Ophelia,  in  which  she  is  told  she  may  doubt  any 
proposition  whatever,  no  matter  how  certain  it  may 
be,  but  under  no  circumstances  must  she  doubt  the 
writer's  love.  From  this  letter,  which  is  partly  in 
verse,  we  quote  : 

"  Doubt  that  in  earth  is  fire, 
Doubt  that  the  stars  do  move, 
Doubt  truth  to  be  a  liar, 
But  do  not  doubt  I  love."  —  ii.  2. 

Among  the  certainties  here  specified,  which 
Ophelia  was  at  liberty  to  question  before  she  could 
question  the  writer's  love,  is  the  doctrine  of  a  cen- 
tral fire  in  the  earth.  "  Doubt  that  in  earth  is  fire." 
The  belief  in  the  existence  of  a  mass  of  molten 
matter  at  the  centre  of  the  earth  was  then,  as  it  is 
now,  universal ;  but  for  some  reason  the  author  of 
the  play  changed  his  mind  in  regard  to  it  within  one 
year  after  the  play  was  published.  The  second  edi- 
tion of  '  Hamlet  '  came  from  the  press  in  1604,  and 
then  the  first  line  of  the  stanza,  quoted  above,  was 
made  to  read  as  follows  : 

"  Doubt  that  the  stars  are  fire." 

The  doctrine  of  a  central  fire  in  the  earth  was  thus 
taken  out  of  the  play  some  time  between  the  appear- 
ance of  the  first  edition  in  1603  and  that  of  the  sec- 
ond in  1604.  How  can  this  be  accounted  for?  Was 
there  another  person  known  to  fame  in  all  the  civil- 
ized world  at  that  time,  besides  the  author  of  '  Ham- 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE        yg 

let,'  who  entertained  a  doubt  as  to  the  condition  of 
the  earth's  interior?  Yes,  there  was  one,  and  per- 
haps one  only.  Francis  Bacon  wrote  a  tract,  entitled 
Cogitationes  de  Natura  Rerum^  assigned  to  the  latter 
part  of  1603  or  the  early  part  of  1604.  Mr.  Spedding, 
the  last  and  best  editor  of  Bacon's  works,  thinks  it 
was  written  before  September,  1604.  In  this  tract, 
evidently  a  fresh  study  of  the  subject,  Bacon  boldly 
took  the  ground  that  the  earth  is  a  cold  body,  cold 
to  the  core,  the  only  cold  body,  as  he  afterwards 
affirmed,  in  the  entire  universe,  all  others,  sun, 
planets,  and  stars,  being  of  fire. 

It  appears,  then,  that  Bacon  adopted  this  new  view 
of  the  earth's  interior  at  precisely  the  same  time  that 
the  author  of  '  Hamlet '  did  ;  that  is  to  say,  accord- 
ing to  the  record,  in  the  brief  interval  between  the 
appearance  of  the  first  and  that  of  the  second  edi- 
tions of  the  drama,  and,  furthermore,  against  the 
otherwise  unanimous  opinion  of  physicists  through- 
out the  world. ^ 


^  "  The  heaven,  from  its  perfect  and  entire  heat  and  the  extreme 
extension  of  matter,  is  most  hot,  lucid,  rarefied,  and  moveable  ; 
whereas  the  earth,  on  the  contrary,  from  its  entire  and  unrefracted 
cold,  and  the  extreme  contraction  of  matter,  is  most  cold,  dark, 
and  dense,  completely  immoveable.  .  .  .  The  rigors  of  cold, 
which  in  winter  time  and  in  the  coldest  countries  are  exhaled  into 
the  air  from  the  surface  of  the  earth,  are  merely  tepid  airs  and 
baths,  compared  with  the  nature  of  the  primal  cold  shut  up  in  the 
bowels  thereof."  Bacon's  De  Principiis  dtqzie  Originibus. 


8o  COINCIDENCES 

XUI. 
CoPERNicAN  System. 
The  second  line  of  the  stanza  in  this  extraordinary 
love-letter  is  also  significant.     In  the  first  edition  it 
runs  as  follows  : 

"  Doubt  that  the  stars  do  move."     1603. 

In  the  second  edition  the  change  is  merely  verbal : 

"Doubt  that  the  sun  doth  move."     1604.^ 

The  doctrine  that  the  earth  is  the  centre  of  the 
universe  around  which  the  sun  and  stars  daily  re- 
volve is  thus  retained.  It  has  been  retained  in  every 
succeeding  edition  of  the  play  to  the  present  time. 
How  can  this,  also,  be  accounted  for? 

Copernicus  published  his  heliocentric  theory  of  the 
solar  system  in  1543,  eighteen  years  before  Bacon 
was  born.  Bruno  taught  it  in  Geneva  in  1580  ;  in 
Paris,  in  1582  ;  in  London  and  Oxford,  in  1583  ;  in 
Germany,  in  1584  ;  in  Switzerland,  in  1588  ;  in 
Venice,  in  1590;  and  he  was  burned  at  the  stake  as  a 
martyr  to  it  in  Rome  in  1600 ;  Kepler  announced  two 
of  his  great  laws,  governing  planetary  motions,  in 
1609  ;  Galileo  established  the  truth  of  the  Coperni- 
can  system  beyond  the  shadow  of  a  doubt  by  his  dis- 
coveries of  the  phases  of  Venus  and  the  satellites  of 
Jupiter  in  1610;  Harriot  saw  the  sun  spots  and 
proved  the  rotation  of  that  luminary  on  its  axis  in 
161 1  ;  Kepler  proclaimed  his  third  law  in  1619  ;  and 
yet,  notwithstanding  all  these  repeated  and  wonder- 
ful demonstrations  and  in  opposition  to  the  general 
current  of  contemporary  thought,^  Bacon  persistently 

'  The  change  was  made  necessary  in  reforming  the  stanza  by  the 
promotion  of  the  word  slan  to  the  first  line. 

'  We  take  no  notice  of  the  opinions  of  theologians,  or  ol  astron- 
omers writing  under  the  influence  of  the  Church. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE        8i 

and  with  ever  increasing  vehemence  adhered  to  the 
old  theory  to  the  day  of  his  death.  The  author  of 
the  Plays  did  the  same.  The  two  were  agreed  in 
holding  to  the  cycles  and  epicycles  of  Ptolemy  after 
all  the  rest  of  the  scientific  world  had  rejected  them  ; 
and  they  were  also  agreed  in  rejecting  the  Coperni- 
can  theory  after  all  the  rest  of  the  scientific  world 
had  accepted  it.^ 

■*  In  1622,  Bacon  admitted  that  the  Copernican  theory  had  be- 
come prevalent  {(Jim  nunc  qiioqiu  invaluit)^  but  he  thought  that  a 
compromise  might  be  effected  between  the  two  opposing  systems, 
evidently  unable,  on  account  of  the  mathematical  principles  in- 
volved, to  comprehend  either  of  them.  At  one  time  he  seems  to 
have  deprecated  both. 

A  slight  circumstance  throws  some  light  upon  the  state  of  his 
mind  on  this  subject.  In  the  first  edition  of  the  '  Advancement  of 
Learning  '  (1605),  he  said  that  "  the  mathematicians  cannot  satisfy 
themselves,  except  they  reduce  the  motions  of  the  celestial  bodies 
to  perfect  circles,  rejecting  spiral  lines,  and  laboring  to  be  dis- 
charged of  eccentrics."  In  the  second  edition  (1623)  he  omitted 
the  reference  to  eccentrics. 

"  Shakespeare  does  not  appear  to  have  got  beyond  the  Ptolemaic 
system  of  the  universe."  —  Ei^zb'S  IVilliam  Shakespeare,  page  390. 


8^  COINCIDENCES 

XLIII. 
The  Tides. 
In  the  second  edition  of  '  Hamlet,'  1604,  we  find 
the  tides  of  the  ocean  attributed,  in  accordance  with 
popular  opinion  to  the  influence  of  the  moon. 

"  The  moist  star, 
Upon  whose  influence  Neptune's  empire  stands, 
Was  sick  almost  to  doomsday  with  eclipse."  —  i.  1. 

This  was  repeated  in  the  third  quarto,  1605  ;  in 
the  fourth,  1611  ;  in  the  fifth  or  undated  quarto; 
but  in  the  first  folio  (1623),  the  lines  were  omitted. 
Why? 

During  the  Christmas  revels  at  Gray's  Inn  in  1594, 
Bacon  contributed  to  the  entertairiment,  among  other 
things,  a  poem  in  blank  verse,  known  as  the  Gray's 
Inn  Masque.  It  is  full  of  those  references  to  natural 
philosophy  in  which  the  author  took  so  much  de- 
light, and  especially  on  this  occasion  when  Queen 
Elizabeth  was  the  subject,  to  the  various  forms  of  at- 
traction exerted  by  one  body  upon  another  in  the 
world.     Of  the  influence  of  the  moon  he  says  : 

"  Your  rock  claims  kindred  of  the  polar  star, 
Because  it  draws  the  needle  to  the  north  ; 
Yet  even  that  star  gives  place  to  Cynthia's  rays, 
Whose  drawing  virtues  govern  and  direct 
The  flots  and  re-flots  of  the  Ocean."  ^ 

At  this  time,  then.  Bacon  held  to  the  common 
opinion  that  the  moon  controls  the  tides  ;  but  later 
in  life,  in  or  about  16 16,  he  made  an  elaborate  inves- 
tigation into  these  phenomena,  and  in  a  treatise  en- 
titled De  Fluxu  et  liefluxu  Maris  definitely  rejected 
the  lunar  theory. 

'  The  Masque  is  not  in  Bacon's  name,  but  no  one  can  read  it  and 
doubt  its  authorship.  Bacon  was  the  leading  promoter  of  these 
revels. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE       83 

"  We  dare  not  proceed  so  far  as  to  assert  that  the  motions  of  the 
sun  or  moon  are  the  causes  of  the  motions  below,  which  correspond 
thereto  ;  or  that  the  sun  and  moon  have  a  dominion  or  influence 
over  these  motions  of  the  sea,  though  such  kind  of  thoughts  find  an 
easy  entrance  into  the  minds  of  men  by  reason  of  the  veneration 
they  pay  to  the  celestial  bodies." — Bacon's  De  Fluxu  et  Rejinxu 
Afaris. 

"Whether  the  moon  be  in  her  increase  or  wane;  whether  she 
be  above  or  under  the  earth  ;  whether  she  be  higher  or  lower 
than  the  horizon  ;  whether  she  be  in  the  meridian  or  elsewhere ; 
the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  sea  have  no  correspondence  with  any  of 
these  phenomena."  —  Idid. 

In  every  edition  of  '  Hamlet  '  published  previously 
to  1616,  the  theory  is  stated  and  approved;  in  every 
edition  published  after  1616,  it  is  omitted.^ 

2  It  should  be  said  that  those  of  the  plays  in  which  the  theory 
bad  been  stated  approvingly  before  1616,  but  which  were  not  re- 
vised after  1616,  still  retain  it.  The  passage  from  '  Hamlet  '  has 
been  restored  to  the  text  by  modern  editors.  Bacon  ascribed  the 
spring  or  monthly  tides  however  to  the  combined  influences  of  the 
sun  and  moon. 


84  COINCIDENCES 

XLIV. 
Motion  and  Sense. 
In  '  Hamlet,'  again,  we  have  a  singular  doctrine 
in  the  sphere  of  moral  philosophy,  advanced  by  the 
author    in    his   early    years    but    subsequently  with- 
drawn. 

The  prince,  expostulating  with  his  mother  in  the 
celebrated  chamber-scene  where  Polonius  was  hidden 
behind  the  arras,  says  to  her,  — 

"  Sense,  sure,  you  have, 
Else  could  you  not  have  motion."  — iii.  4  (1604). 

The  commentators  can  make  nothing  of  these 
words.  One  of  them  suggests  that  for  "  motion  " 
we  substitute  notion;  another  emotion.  Others  still 
contend  that  the  misprint  is  in  the  first  part  of  the 
sentence  ;  that  "  sense  "  must  be  understood  to  mean 
sensation  or  sensibility.  Dr.  Ingleby  is  certain  that 
Hamlet  refers  to  the  Queen's  wanton  impulse.  The 
difficulty  is  complicated,  too,  by  the  fact  that  the 
lines  were  omitted  from  the  revised  version  of  the 
play  in  the  folio  of  1623,  concerning  which,  how- 
ever, the  most  daring  commentator  has  not  ventured 
to  offer  a  remark.  But  in  Bacon's  prose  works  we 
find  not  only  an  explanation  of  the  passage  in  the 
quarto,  but  also  the  reason  why  it  was  excluded  from 
the  folio. 

The  '  Advancement  of  Learning '  was  published  in 
1605,  one  year  after  the  quarto  of  '  Hamlet  '  contain- 
ing the  sentence  in  question  appeared;  but  no  repu- 
diation of  the  old  doctrine,  that  everything  that  has 
motion  must  have  sense,  is  found  in  it.  Indeed, 
Bacon  seems  to  have  had  at  that  time  a  lingering 
opinion  that  the  doctrine  is  true,  even  as  applied  to 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE     85 

the  planets,  in  the  influence  which  these  wanderers 
were  then  supposed  to  exert  over  the  affairs  of  men. 
But  in  1623  he  published  a  new  edition  of  the  '  Ad- 
vancement '  in  Latin  under  the  title  of  De  Augmentis 
Scientiarum^  and  therein  expressly  declared  that  the 
doctrine  is  untrue  ;  that  there  can  be  motion  in  in- 
animate bodies  without  sense,  but  with  what  he 
called  a  kind  of  perception.     He  said  : 

"  Ignorance  on  this  point  drove  some  of  the  an- 
cient philosophers  to  suppose  that  a  soul  is  infused 
into  all  bodies  without  distinction  ;  for  they  could 
not  conceive  how  there  can  be  motion  without  sense, 
or  without  a  soul." 

The  Shake-speare  folio  with  its  revised  version  of 
'  Hamlet  '  came  out  in  the  same  year  (1623)  5  ^"^  the 
passage  in  question,  having  run  through  all  previous 
editions  of  the  play,  —  i.  e.  in  1604,  in  1605,  in  1611, 
and  in  the  undated  quarto,  —  but  now  no  longer 
harmonizing  with  the  author's  views,  dropped  out. 


86  COINCIDENCES 

XLV. 
Music. 
*  King  Lear '  was  published  in  quarto  in  1608,  two 
editions  having  been  issued  in  that  year.    It  contains 
the  following  speeches  on  the  disorders  of  the  time  : 

"  Gloucester.  These  late  eclipses  in  the  sun  and  moon  portend  no 
good  to  us ;  though  the  -wisdom  of  nature  can  reason  it  thus  and 
thus,  yet  nature  finds  itself  scourged  by  the  sequent  effects.  Love 
cools,  friendship  falls  off,  brothers  divide ;  in  cities,  mutinies ;  in 
countries,  discord ;  in  palaces,  treason ;  and  the  bond  crack'd 
'twixt  son  and  father.  This  villain  of  mine  comes  under  the  pre- 
diction ;  there's  son  against  father.  The  king  falls  from  bias  of 
nature  ;  there's  father  against  child.  We  have  seen  the  best  of  our 
time  ;  machinations,  hollowness,  treachery,  and  all  ruinous  dis- 
orders follow  us  disquietly  to  our  graves."     •     .     .  {Exit, 

'■'Edmund.  .  .  .  O!  these  eclipses  do  portend  these  diyi- 
sions."  —  i.  2. 

The  next  appearance  of  the  play,  in  print,  was  in 
the  folio  of  1623,  where  the  closing  part  of  Edmund's 
soliloquy,  suggested  by  what  Gloucester  had  said  be- 
fore leaving  the  stage,  is  given  as  follows  : 

"  O  !  these  eclipses  do  portend  these  divisions.     Fa,  sol,  la,  mi." 

Here  is  a  musical  phrase  added  to  the  text  fifteen 
years  after  the  play  was  first  printed ;  probably 
seventeen  or  eighteen  years  after  the  play  was 
written.  It  consists  of  syllables  for  solmization  (in- 
cluding a  tritonus  or  sharp  fourth),  which  in  Shake- 
speare's time  and  until  a  comparatively  recent  date  im- 
plied a  series  of  sounds  exceedingly  disagreeable  to 
the  ear.  It  was  called  the  "  devil  in  music."  As  an 
illustration  of  the  state  of  moral,  political,  and  physi- 
cal discord  described  by  Gloucester,  nothing  could 
have  been  more  felicitous  ;  but  how  shall  we  explain 
its  late  introduction  into  the  play? 

Evidently  the  figure  was  suggested  to  the  author 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE       87 

for  use  in  this  connection  sometime  between  1608  and 
1623,  ^^<^  then  only  after  the  careful  study  of  a 
science  the  technique  of  which  is  exceptionally  diffi- 
cult and  abstruse.  William  Shakspere,  the  reputed 
dramatist,  was  then  living  in  Stratford,^  in  an  en- 
vironment wholly  unfitted  for  such  a  study.  He  died 
in  1616.  Francis  Bacon,  on  the  other  hand,  began 
the  composition  of  his  Sylva  Sylvarum  in  October, 
1622  and  in  that  work  investigated  not  only  the  gen- 
eral laws  of  harmony,  but  also  this  particular  tri- 
tonus  or  sharp  fourth,  given  one  year  later  in  the  re- 
vised version  of  the  play.^ 


^  See  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere,  8tli  ed.,  Chapter  II. 

2  "  Edmund  alludes  to  the  unnatural  division  of  parent  and  child, 
etc.,  in  this  musical  phrase  which  contains  the  augmented  fourth, 
or  mi  contra  fa,  of  which  the  old  theorists  used  to  say,  diabolus  est." 
—  NaylOR'S  Shakespeare  and  Alusic,  p.  36. 

Example  of  Sol-Fa  (16th  and  17th  centuries). 


Fa  sol   la   Fa  sol  la   MI  fa 


"  The  augmented  fourths,  formed  by  the  notes  fa  and  mi,  marked 
•with  X,  are  the  mi  contra  fa  which  diabolus  est."  —  Ibid..,  p.  186. 


88  COINCIDENCES 

XLVL 

Nature  and  Art. 
The  antithesis  between  nature  and  art  was  a  con- 
spicuous dogma  of  the  peripatetic  school  of  phil- 
osophy. In  the  contention  of  Aristotle  the  distinc- 
tion between  nature  and  art  is  sufficiently  expressed 
when  we  say  that  a  formative  principle  is  at  work  in- 
herently in  one,  while  in  the  other  the  source  of 
energy  is  without.^  Bacon  declared  that  no  antithe- 
sis whatever  exists  between  the  two  cases ;  that  the 
processes  are  identical,  except  in  one  particular, 
namely  :  man  has  power  by  bringing  natural  objects 
together  to  institute  new  processes,  or  by  separating 
natural  objects  to  destroy  old  processes,  the  processes 
themselves,  however,  being  always  strictly  in  accord- 
ance with  natural  law.  The  difference,  according  to 
Bacon,  resolves  itself  into  a  power  of  motion.  For 
instance,  the  sun  shining  through  drops  of  water 
falling  from  a  cloud  creates  a  rainbow  ;  so,  also,  when 
it  shines  through  the  spray  of  a  fountain.  Nature 
does  the  work  in  her  own  way  in  both  cases.  Given 
a  shower  of  rain  or  mist,  whether  natural  or  artifi- 
cial, in  sunlight,  and  the  rainbow  comes  as  a  matter 
of  course.  Gold  is  refined  by  one  method,  and  by 
one  only,  whether  in  the  hot  sands  of  the  earth  or  in 
a  furnace  prepared  by  art.  In  the  grafting  of  a  tree, 
man  may  insert  a  scion  in  the  stock,  but  the  new 
fruit  is  developed  under  the  same  laws  that  govern 
the  production  of  the  old.  This  view  was  then  not 
altogether  a  new    one,  but   it   is  significant    in  our 


^  T\  yap  T€X''V  oiPXV  'fci^  el5o5   rod  yevo/jJvov  d\\'  iv  er^pi^  rj  ok  t^j  0i/crewj 
Kivr;(TLS  ii>  ai/r<J;  d^'  erdpas  oOcra  (pijjeojs  rrjs  ixoiiffTjs  to  eloox  evepyeiq,. 

Aristotle  De  Gen.-Anim.  —  ii.  i. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE        8g 


case  because  profound  scholars  only,  and  those  com- 
paratively few  in  number  in  the  world,  had  knowledge 
of  it.  That  the  author  of  the  Plays,  however,  was 
perfectly  familiar  with  this  abstruse  speculation, 
and  that  he  stated  it  in  almost  the  same  language, 
word  for  word,  as  Bacon  did,  the  following  parallel- 
ism will  show  : 


"  Nature  is  made  better  by  no 

mean  [means] 
But   Nature   makes  that  mean  ; 

so,  over  that  art 
Which,  you  say,  adds  to  Nature, 

in  an  Art 
That  Nature   makes.     You  see, 

sweet  maid,  we  marry 
A  gentler  scion  to  the  wildest 

stock  ; 
And   make   conceive  a  bark  of 

baser  kind 
By  bud  of  nobler  race.    This  is 

an  art 
"Which  does  mend  nature,  change 

it  rather ;  but 
The  art  itself  is  nature." 

Winter's   Tale,  iv.  3  (161 1). 

The  doctrine  appeared  for  the  first  time  in  Bacon's 
prose  works,  as  above,  in  1612  ;  in  the  plays  in  161 1. 

It  appears,  then,  that  the  two  authors  made  the 
same  recondite  study  of  the  relations  between  nature 
and  art,  made  it  at  the  same  time,  and  reached  the 
same  conclusion. 


"  It  is  the  fashion  to  talk  as  if 
art  were  something  different 
from  nature,  or  a  sort  of  addition 
to  nature,  with  power  to  finish 
what  nature  has  begun,  or  cor- 
rect her  when  going  aside.  .  .  . 
In  truth  man  has  no  power  over 
nature  except  that  of  motion,  — 
the  power,  I  say,  of  putting  nat- 
ural bodies  together  or  separat- 
ing them,  —  the  rest  is  done  by 
nature  'ojithin ."  —  Descriptio  Globi 
Intellectualis  {cir.  1612). 


go  COINCIDENCES 

XLVII. 
Torture. 
The  '  Second  Part  of  King  Henry  VI.'  was  pub- 
lished under  another  title,  in  1594,  in  1600,  and 
again  (three  years  after  the  death  of  the  reputed 
poet  at  Stratford)  in  1619.  In  each  of  these  versions, 
Gloucester  is  forced  to  confess  that  in  his  administra- 
tion of  affairs  as  Protector  during  the  minority  of 
the  king  he  had  tortured  prisoners  contrary  to  law. 
It  was  he,  in  fact,  that  actually  introduced  the  prac- 
tice into  England.  He  says  in  the  play,  as  first 
printed  in  the  quartos  : 

"  Why,  't  is  well  known  that  whilst  I  was  Protector, 
Pity  was  all  the  fault  that  was  in  me  ; 
A  murderer  or  foul  felonious  thief, 
That  robs  and  murders  silly  passengers, 
I  tortur'd  above  the  rate  of  common  law." 

In  the  folio  (1623),  however,  where  the  play  ap- 
pears again  in  a  revised  form,  this  statement,  that 
torture  of  suspected  criminals  was  contrary  to,  or 
*'  above  the  rate  of  "  common  law,  was  omitted.  The 
passage  was  then  made  to  read  as  follows  : 

"  Why,  't  is  well  known  that  whilst  I  was  Protector, 
Pity  was  all  the  fault  that  was  in  me  ; 
For  I  should  melt  at  an  offender's  tears, 
And  lowly  words  were  ransom  for  their  fault ; 
Unless  it  were  a  bloody  murderer, 
Or  foul  felonious  thief  that  fleec'd  poor  passengers, 
I  never  gave  them  condign  punishment. 
Murder,  indeed,  that  bloody  sin,  I  tortur'd 
Above  the  felon,  or  what  trespass  else."  —  iii.  i. 

English  lawyers  were  always  opposed  to  use  of  the 
rack  as  unknown  to  law.  The  right  was  claimed, 
however,  by  King  James,  who  ordered  Bacon,  as 
Attorney-General,  to  take  part  in  some  proceedings 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE        gi 

of  the  kind  in  the  Tower.  Bacon  complied  ;  but  as 
author  of  the  play,  in  its  revision  after  1619,  he 
would  not  naturally  have  cared  to  retain  in  it  a  judg- 
ment against  himself. 


g2  COINCIDENCES 

XLVIII. 
The  Passion  of  Envy. 
Shake-speare  wrote  a  drama  after  his  manner  to 
exemplify  the  passion  of  Envy.  It  is  that  of  'Julius 
Caesar,'  which  in  this  view  is  saved  from  the  de- 
grading hypothesis,  hitherto  entertained  by  many 
scholars,  that  originally,  as  it  came  from  Shake- 
speare, it  was  two  dramas,  but  afterward  imperfectly 
or  loosely  united  in  one  by  another  hand.  The 
ground  of  its  unity  is  indeed  distinctly  stated  in  the 
play  itself,  thus  : 

"  All  the  conspirators,  save  only  he, 
Did  that  they  did  in  envy  of  great  Caesar." 

It  follows,  of  course,  that  the  evil  deed  and  its 
punishment  are  legitimate  and  equally  important 
parts  of  the  famous  tragedy. 

Bacon  wrote  an  essay  on  Envy,  every  point  of 
which  is  illustrated  and  enforced  in  the  play. 

Of  the  many  misinterpretations  of  this  play,  now 
current,  the  worst  perhaps  is  that  of  Reverend  Fred- 
eric G.  Fleay,  as  follows  : 

"The  Tragedy  of  Julius  Caesar  contains  Caesar's  Revenge  as 
well  as  his  Tragedy,  and  seems  to  me  to  be  a  condensation  of  two 
plays  into  one,  made  after  Shakespeare's  retirement  by  Ben  Jonson." 

We  regret  to  add  that  this  has  been  pronounced  a 
"plausible"  view  by  Professor  Barrett  Wendell  of 
Harvard  University. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE        pj 

XLIX. 

Obsolete  Laws. 

On  one  subject  Bacon  was  continually,  but  unsuc- 
cessfully, pressing  his  views  upon  the  government. 
It  was  on  the  necessity  of  a  regular  systematic  re- 
vision of  the  laws,  so  many  of  which  had  then  be- 
come obsolete.  He  laid  the  matter  before  parliament 
in  what  was  perhaps  the  first  speech  he  made  there, 
citing  the  customs  that  had  prevailed  in  Greece  and 
Rome,  and  those  that  were  still  prevailing  in  France, 
in  reference  to  it,  and  showing  on  his  own  part  spe- 
cial interest  in  the  subject.  This  was  in  1593.  In 
1608  he  spoke  again  in  advocacy  of  the  appointment 
of  a  commission  for  the  purpose.  In  161 1,  in  1614 
and  once  more  also  in  162 1  he  urged  the  matter  di- 
rectly upon  the  attention  of  the  king,  offering  his 
personal  services  in  the  execution  of  the  work. 

Shake-speare  wrote  a  drama  to  demonstrate  the 
importance  of  removing  laws  that  were  obsolete  from 
the  statute-books.  '  Measure  for  Measure '  was 
printed  for  the  first  time  in  the  Folio  of  1623,  al- 
though probably  written  in  the  last  days  of  Eliza- 
beth. We  may  be  sure  that  the  author's  heart  was 
in  it,  for  At  is  one  of  the  grandest  productions  that 
ever  came  from  a  pen. 


g4  COINCIDENCES 

L. 

Period  of  Final  Publication. 

The  Shake-speare  Plays  began  to  issue  from  tlie 
press,  singly  and  in  quarto  form,  in  1597.  They 
continued  to  do  so  until  1623  when  they  were  col- 
lected together,  enlarged,  revised  and  published  in 
one  folio  volume  for  preservation. 

Bacon  began  to  write  for  the  public  and  for  publi- 
cation in  book  form  also  in  1597.  He  brought  his 
great  work,  the  Novum  Organum^  to  a  finish,  after 
having  spent  many  years  upon  it,  in  1620.  He  did 
the  same  with  the  Advancement  of  Learning,  first 
printed  eighteen  years  earlier,  in  1623.  ^^^  Essays 
were  printed  by  him  for  the  last  time  in  1625.  ^^^ 
latter  had  been  continually  growing,  in  number,  size 
and  excellence,  during  the  entire  preceding  period  of 
twenty-eight  years.  It  was,  therefore  between  1620 
and  1625,  and  chiefly  in  1623,  that  Bacon  devoted  his 
time  to  the  revision,  enlargement,  publication  and 
preservation  of  his  prose  writings.  The  two  authors 
began  and  ended  their  respective  careers,  as  shown 
by  their  works,  at  substantially  the  same  time. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE        gs 

LI. 

Sir  Edward  Coke. 

The   dramatist     seems    to    have  had   a    prejudice 

against    the    great    lawyer,   Sir    Edward    Coke.     He 

caricatured  Coke  in  '  Twelfth  Night,'  thus  : 

Sir  Toby.  "  Taunt  him  with  the  license  of  ink  ;  if  thou  thou'st 
him  thrice,  it  shall  not  be  amiss,  and  as  many  lies  as  will  lie  in  thy 
sheet  of  paper,  although  the  sheet  were  big  enough  for  the  Bed  of 
Ware  in  England,  set  'em  down." 

This  is  a  reference  to  one  of  Coke's  brutal  speeches 
made  at  the  trial  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  in  which 
occurred  these  words:  "  Thou  viper!  for  I  thou  thee, 
thou  traitor!  "  Louis  Theobald  (1733)  cites  this 
passage  as  a  proof  of  the  author's  detestation  of  Coke. 

Bacon's  most  implacable  enemy  throughout  his 
life  was  Sir  Edward  Coke.  In  our  'Bacon  va.  Shak- 
spere,  Brief  for  Plaintiff,'  we  say: 

"The  two  were  constant  rivals  for  the  favor  of  the  Court  and  for 
the  highest  honors  of  the  profession  to  which  they  belonged.  They 
were  rivals,  too,  for  the  hand  of  Lady  Hatton,  the  beautiful  widow, 
who  finally  waived  the  eight  objections  which  her  friends  urged 
against  Coke  (his  seven  children  and  himself)  and  gave  him  the 
preference.  At  one  time  the  contention  became  so  personal  and 
bitter  that  Bacon  appealed  to  the  government  for  help."  —  7th  ed. 
p.  2ir. 

When  the  Novum  Organum  appeared,  Coke  said 
of  it: 

"  It  deserveth  not  to  be  read  in  schools, 
But  to  be  freighted  in  the  ship  of  fools." 


g6  COINCIDENCES 

LII. 
Queen  Elizabeth,  A  Virgin. 
In  the  drama  of  '  King  Henry  VIII,'  written  after 
Queen  Elizabeth's   death,  the  author  declared  that 
the  Queen  had  lived  and  died  a  virgin. 

"  She  shall  be,  to  the  happiness  of  England, 
An  aged  princess  ;  many  days  shall  see  her, 
And  yet,  no  day  without  a  deed  to  crown  it, 
'Would  I  had  known  no  more  !  but  she  must  die  — 
She  must,  the  saints  must  have  her  —  yet  a  virgin  ; 
A  most  unspotted  lily  shall  she  pass 
To  the  ground."  —  v.  4, 57. 

Bacon  entertained  for  the  Queen  nothing  but  the 
sincerest  and  most  affectionate  sentiments.  In  1608, 
five  years  after  her  death,  he  wrote  a  memorial  of 
her  in  which  he  gave  many  points  of  her  character 
and  condition  in  life  that  had  contributed  to  her 
felicity.  One  was  the  fact  that  "  she  was  childless 
and  had  no  issue  of  her  own;  "  and  another  as  fol- 
lows :  "  She  was,  no  doubt,  a  good  and  moral  queen. 
Vices  she  hated,  and  it  was  by  honest  arts  that  she 
desired  to  shine.  .  .  .  Very  often,  many  years 
before  her  death,  she  would  pleasantly  call  herself  an 
old  woman,  and  would  talk  of  the  kind  of  epitaph 
she  would  like  upon  her  tomb,  saying  that  she  had 
no  fancy  for  glory  or  splendid  titles,  but  would  rather 
have  a  line  or  two  of  memorial,  recording  in  few 
words  only  her  name,  her  virginity,  the  time  of  her 
reign,  the  reformation  of  religion,  and  the  preserva- 
tion of  peace." 

Bacon  was  so  impressed  by  his  sense  of  duty  to  the 
Queen's  memory  that  in  his  will  (first  draft)  he  gave 
special  directions  to  his  executors  to  publish  this 
memorial  of  her. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE       97 

Queen  Elizabeth  died  March  24,  1603.  Within  a 
few  months  of  that  event  Bacon  recorded  his  opinion 
of  her  in  the  following  words:  "If  Plutarch  were 
now  alive  to  write  lives  by  parallels,  it  would  trouble 
him,  I  think,  to  find  for  her  a  parallel  among 
women." 

Belief  in  the  Queen's  virginity  may  be  said  to  rest, 
therefore,  upon  the  testimonies  of  Francis  Bacon, 
William  Shake-speare,  and  the  Queen  herself.  Ben 
Jonson  also  testified  to  the  same  effect  in  his  conver- 
sations with  William  Drummond  of  Hawthornden, 
sixteen  years  after  the  Queen's  death.  We  pity  those 
who  can  doubt  it. 


g8  COINCIDENCES 

LIII. 
Writings  Despised. 

The  author  of  the  Plays  was  fully  aware  that  his 
writings  were  generally  despised.  He  did  not  per- 
mit himself,  so  far  as  we  are  informed,  to  become 
personally  known  as  their  author  to  any  one  in 
London,  either  within  or  without  theatrical  circles, 
Ben  Jonson  (who  was  often  at  Gorhambury  with 
Bacon)  and  Sir  Thomas  Bodley  (who  was  Bacon's 
confidential  correspondent)  alone  excepted.  The 
Plays  were  constantly  on  the  boards,  and  more  than 
sixty  editions  of  some  of  them  published  during  a 
period  of  thirty-two  years,  but  no  letter,  written  by 
the  author  on  the  subject,  or  in  which  the  slightest 
reference  is  made  to  them,  has  ever  been  discovered 
or  heard  of. 

Certain  important  writings  of  Bacon,  as  we  know 
from  his  own  confession,  were  despised.  In  a  prayer 
which  he  composed  shortly  before  his  death  he  com- 
mended himself  to  God  because  he  had,  as  he  said, 
"(though  in  a  despised  weed)  procured  the  good  of 
all  men."  What  this  "  weed  "  or  kind  of  composition 
was,  we  may  perhaps  infer  from  a  statement  made  by 
Sir  Thomas  Bodley  that  "  Bacon  had  wasted  many 
years  of  his  life  on  such  study  as  was  not  worthy  of 
him."  Bodley  was  founder  of  the  library  that  bears 
his  name  at  Oxford  ;  under  the  terms  of  his  gift  he 
specially  excluded  from  it  all  dramatic  productions, 
on  the  ground  (to  use  his  own  words)  that  they  are 
nothing  but  "  riff-raffs." 

No  attempt  to  identify  the  particular  work  or 
works  of  Bacon  that  were  despised  has  ever  been 
made.       Bodley's    condemnation   of   dramas    for   his 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE        gg 

library,  his  condemnation  of  Bacon  for  writing  what 
was  "  unworthy  of  him,"  and  Bacon's  confession 
that  ''  he  had  sought  the  good  of  all  men  "  in  some 
kind  of  effort  that  was  "  despised,"  may,  taken  to- 
gether, lighten  the  search.  If  it  could  be  admitted 
that  Bacon  wrote  dramas,  every  difficulty  would 
vanish. 


loo  COINCIDENCES 

LIV. 
Bribery. 
Judge  Say  was  another  character  in  the  drama  of 
*  King  Henry  VI.'  He  was  arrested  by  Cade  and 
accused  of  various  crimes  and  misdemeanors  for 
which  he  was  finally  beheaded.  According  to  the 
quarto  editions  of  1594,  1600,  and  1619,  he  answered 
his  accusers  as  follows  :  — 

"  Kent,  in  the  Commentaries  Csesar  wrote, 
Isterm'd  the  civil'st  place  of  all  this  land  ; 
Then,  noble  countrymen,  hear  me  but  speak ; 
I  sold  not  France,  I  lost  not  Normandy." 

In  the  play  as  revised  after  16 19  and  published  in 
the  Folio  of  1623,  ^^^^  speech  is  thus  enlarged : 

"  Kent,  in  the  Commentaries  Caesar  writ, 
Is  term'd  the  civil'st  place  in  all  this  isle  ; 
Sweet  is  the  country,  because  full  of  riches ; 
The  people  liberal,  valiant,  active,  wealthy  ; 
Which  makes  me  hope  you  are  not  void  of  pity. 
I  sold  not  Maine,  I  lost  not  Normandy 
Yet  to  recover  them  would  lose  my  life  ; 
Justice  with  favor  have  I  always  done  ; 
Prayers  and  tears  have  mov'd  me,  gifts  could  never. 
When  have  I  aught  exacted  at  your  hands, 
But  to  maintain  the  king,  the  realm,  and  you? 
Large  gifts  have  I  bestow'd  on  learned  clerks, 
Because  my  book  preferr'd  me  to  the  king ; 
And  seeing  ignorance  is  the  curse  of  God, 
Knowledge  the  wing  wherewith  we  fly  to  heaven, 
Unless  you  be  possess'd  with  devilish  spirits. 
You  cannot  but  forbear  to  murder  me  ; 
This  tongue  hath  parley'd  unto  foreign  kings 
For  your  behoof."  —  Second Pa^-t,  iv.  7. 

In  this  addition  to  the  speech  four  passages  may  be 
noted  : 

I.  The  judge  denies  that  he  has  been  guilty  of  bribery,  though 
not  accused  of  it  in  the  play,  nor,  historically,  in  the  administra- 
tion of  justice  in  his  court. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE      lor 

Bacon  fell  from  power  in  the  spring  of  162 1,  under 
charges  of  bribery,  which  he  also  declared  to  be  false 
and  of  which  we  now  know  he  was  innocent. 

2.  The  judge  had  sent  a  book  of  which  he  was  the  author  to  the 
king  and  been  "  preferred  "  on  account  of  it. 

Bacon  sent  a  copy  of  his  Novum  Organum  in  1620 
to  King  James,  who  immediately  created  him  Vis- 
count St.  Alban. 

3.  The  judge  had  bestowed  large  gifts  on  persons  of  subordinate 
rank. 

Bacon's  generosity  to  the  same  class  of  people  was 
a  distinguishing  trait  in  his  character.  He  fre- 
quently gave  gratuities  to  messengers,  who  came  to 
him  with  presents,  of  £^  los.,  or  (in  money  of  the 
present  time)  £^(i  ($33o)-  On  one  occasion  the  gra- 
tuity (present  value)  was  ;^300,  or  $1,500.  In  three 
months  (June  24  to  Sept.  29,  1618)  he  disbursed  in 
this  way  the  sum  of  ;^302  7s.,  equal  now  to  ;^3,6oo, 
or  $18,000.  This  was  at  the  rate  of  $72,000  per 
annum. 

4.  The  judge  had  conversed  on  public  affairs  with  foreign 
potentates. 

Bacon  had  been  attach<5  of  a  British  embassy 
abroad,  and  on  intimate  terms  with  kings  and 
queens. 

The  above  addition  to  Judge  Say's  speech  was  thus 
made  not  only  after  1619,  at  which  time  the  reputed 
poet  had  been  three  years  in  his  grave  at  Stratford, 
but  even  after  May  3,  1621,  the  date  of  Bacon's  de- 
gradation from  the  bench  on  charges  of  bribery. 


I02  COINCIDENCES 

LV. 
Dark  Period. 
At  one  time  Bacon  thought  himself  in  serious 
danger  of  his  life.  The  popular  feeling  against  him 
grew  out  of  his  connection  with  the  Earl  of  Essex, 
although  Mr.  Spedding  has  been  able  to  show  be- 
yond a  doubt  that  it  was  wholly  misdirected  and  un- 
just. The  fact  of  its  existence,  however,  cannot  be 
questioned.  Bacon  frequently  referred  to  it  in  his 
correspondence  during  the  period  1599-1601. 

"  My  life  has  been  threatened  and  my  name  libeled."  —  Letter  to 
the  Queen. 

"  As  for  any  violence  to  be  offered  me,  wherewith  my  friends  tell 
me  I  am  offered,  I  thank  God  I  have  the  privy  coat  of  a  good  con- 
science.   I  know  no  remedy  against  libels  and  lies." — Letter  to  Cecil, 

"For  my  part  I  have  deserved  better  than  to  have  my  name 
objected  to  envy,  or  my  life  to  a  rufl&an's  violence."  —  Letter  to 
Howard. 

The  Shake-speare  Sonnets  were  written  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  sixteenth  and  the  early  part  of  the 
seventeenth  centuries.  From  some  unexplained 
cause  the  author  of  these  productions  seems  also  to 
have  been  at  that  time  in  danger  of  his  life. 

"  Then  hate  me  if  thou  wilt ;  if  ever,  now, 
Now  while  the  world  is  bent  my  deeds  to  cross. 
Join  with  the  spite  of  fortune."  —  Sonnet  90. 

•'The  coward  conquest  of  a  wretch's  knife."  —  Sonnet  74. 

*'  Your  love  and  pity  doth  the  impression  fill, 
Which  vulgar  scandal  stamp'd  upon  my  brow ; 
For  what  care  I  who  calls  me  well  or  ill. 
So  you  o'ergreen  my  bad,  my  good  allow  ? 
You  are  my  all  the  world,  and  I  must  strive 
To  know  my  shames  and  praises  from  your  tongue  ; 
None  else  to  me,  nor  I  to  none  alive, 
That  my  steel'd  sense  or  changes  right  or  wrong. 
In  so  profound  abysm  I  throw  all  care 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE      103 

Of  others*  voices,  that  my  adder's  sense 

To  critic  and  to  flatterer  stopped  are, 

Mark  how  with  my  neglect  I  do  dispense."  —  Sonnet  112. 

On  this  point  we  quote  from  Mr.  Thomas  Tyler's 
Shakespeare's  Sonnets,'  as  follows  : 

"  In  the  series  of  Sonnets  loo  to  126,  there  are  allusions  to  some 
scandal  which,  at  the  time  when  these  sonnets  were  written,  was  in 
circulation  with  regard  to  Shakespeare.  .  .  .  How  deeply  Shake- 
speare felt  the  scandal  is  shown  by  the  first  two  lines  of  112,  where 
he  speaks  of  his  forehead  as  though  branded  or  stamped  thereby  : 

*' '  Your  love  and  pity  doth  the  impression  fill, 
Which  vulgar  scandal  stamp'd  upon  my  brow.' 

"  The  great  difiSculty  in  the  way  of  supposing  that  the  reference 
is  merely  to  the  stage  and  acting  is  presented  by  the  remarkable 
language  of  Sonnet  121,  from  which  it  appears  that  the  scandal  had 
some  relation  to  Shakespeare's  moral  character  : 

"  '  'T  is  better  to  be  vile  than  vile  esteem'd, 
When  not  to  be  receives  reproach  of  being.' 

"The  poem  consisting  of  Sonnets  100  to  126,  which  speaks  of  the 
scandal  from  which  the  poet  was  suffering,  we  have  placed  in  the 
spring  or  early  summer  of  1601."     Page  113. 

The  Earl  of  Essex  was  executed  in  February,  1601, 
at  which  time,  or  immediately  afterward,  the  scandal 
against  Bacon  reached  its  height. 

It  appears,  then,  — 

1.  That  each  of  these  two  authors  (if  there  were 
two)  had  a  "  dark  period  "  in  his  life  ; 

2.  That  this  dark  period  arose  in  each  from  the 
same  cause,  a  public  scandal ; 

3.  That  it  culminated  in  each  at  precisely  the 
same  time,  *'  in  the  spring  or  summer  of  1601  ;  "  and 

4.  That  it  inspired  in  both  cases  fear  of  assassi- 
nation. 


I04  COINCIDENCES 

LVI. 
Galen  and  Paracelsus. 
Bacon  seems  to  have  had  a  special  enmity  against 
both  Galen  and  Paracelsus.  In  his  ridicule  of  the 
ancient  sages  he  yoked  these  two  men  together,  re- 
gardless of  the  fact  that  they  had  nothing  in  com- 
mon, were  of  different  nationalities,  and  lived  with 
an  interval  between  them  of  fourteen  hundred  years. 
Bacon  says  of  them  : 

"  Galen  was  a  man  of  the  narrowest  mind,  a  forsaker  of  experi- 
ence, and  a  vain  pretender.  Like  the  dog-star,  he  condemned  man- 
kind to  death,  for  he  assumed  that  whole  classes  of  diseases  are  in- 
curable. .  •  .  But  I  could  better  indure  thee,  O  Galen,  weighing 
thy  elements,  than  thee,  O  Paracelsus,  adorning  thy  dreams.  With 
what  zeal  do  both  of  you  take  shelter  under  the  authority  of  Hippo- 
crates, like  asses  under  a  tree  ?  And  who  bursts  not  into  laughter 
at  such  a  sight  ?  Redargutio  Philosophiarum. 

Strangely  enough,  Shake-speare  also  uses  these 
two  names  together,  and  in  Bacon's  own  vein  of 
ridicule  and  contempt.  The  passage  is  in  *  All's 
Well  that  Ends  Well '  where  they  are  held  up  to 
scorn,  and  that,  too,  in  connection  with  the  Court 
Physicians,  **the  learned  and  authentic  fellows," 
who  had  pronounced  the  King's  malady  incurable. 
The  passage  is  as  follows  : 

"  Lafeu.  They  say  miracles  are  past ;  and  we  have  our  philoso- 
phical persons,  to  make  modern  and  familiar  things  supernatural 
and  causeless.  Hence  is  it,  that  we  make  trifles  of  terrors,  ensconc 
ing  ourselves  into  seeming  knowledge,  when  we  should  submit  our- 
selves to  an  unknown  fear. 

Parolles.  Why,  it  is  the  rarest  argument  of  wonder,  that  hath 
shot  out  in  our  latter  times. 

Bertram.     And  so  'tis. 

Laf.     To  be  relinquish'd  of  the  artists,  — 

Par.     So  I  say  ;  both  of  Galen  and  Paracelsus, 

Laf.     Of  all  the  learned  and  authentic  fellows  — 

Par.     Right ;  so  I  say. 

Laf.     That  gave  him  out  incurable."  //.  3,  /. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE      105 

What  is  said  of  Galen  and  Paracelsus  in  both  sets 
of  works  has  every  mark  of  an  individual  fancy. 


io6  COINCIDENCES 

LVII. 

Intellect. 

Shdke-sjpeare. 

'*  The  glory  of  the  human  intellect."  —  De  Quincy. 
"  The  greatest  intellect  in  literature." —  Carlyle. 
"An  intellectual  miracle." —  Chalmers. 

Bacon. 

"  The  most  exquisitely  constructed  intellect  that  has  ever  been 
bestowed  on  any  of  the  children  of  men."  —  Macaulay. 
"  The  greatest  of  all  intellects."  —  Hallatn. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE      107 

LVIII. 

Wisdom. 

Sluike-^eare. 

"  The  wisest  of  men." —  Walter  Savage  Landor, 

Bacon. 

"  The  wisest  of  men."  —  Henry  Ilallam, 


io8  COINCIDENCES 

LIX. 
Paradise  Regained. 
The  object  of  Bacon's  philosophy,  as  repeatedly 
stated  by  him,  was  to  restore  man's  lost  empire  over 
nature.  But  in  1613  he  was  appointed  by  King 
James,  Attorney  General,  and  therefore,  being  at  that 
time  over  fifty  years  of  age,  he  could  have  expected 
no  further  leisure  for  the  prosecution  of  such  work. 
What  could  then  have  been  more  natural  to  him  than 
the  conception  of  a  specially  devised  drama  in  which, 
before  bidding  farewell  to  the  subject  on  which  he 
had  expended  so  much  thought  and  which  he  deemed 
so  important,  he  should  display,  on  a  field  apart  by 
itself,  some  of  the  new  powers  he  had  sought  to  con- 
fer upon  mankind  ?     Macaulay  says  : 

"In  Bacon's  magnificent  day-dreams  there  was  nothing  wild, 
nothing  but  what  sober  reason  sanctioned.  He  knew  that  all  the 
secrets  feigned  by  poets  to  have  been  written  in  the  books  of  en- 
chanters are  worthless  when  compared  with  the  mighty  secrets 
which  are  really  written  in  the  book  of  nature,  and  which,  with 
time  and  patience,  will  be  read  there.  He  knew  that  all  the  won- 
ders wrought  by  all  the  talismans  in  fables  were  trifles  when  com- 
pared with  the  wonders  which  might  reasonably  be  expected  from 
the  '  philosophy  of  fruit,'  and  that,  if  his  words  sank  deep  into  the 
minds  of  men,  they  would  produce  effects  such  as  superstition  had 
never  ascribed  to  the  incantations  of  Merlin  and  Michael  Scot.  It 
was  here  that  he  loved  to  let  his  imagination  loose.  He  loved  to 
picture  to  himself  the  world  as  it  would  be  when  his  philosophy 
should,  in  his  own  noble  phrase,  '  have  enlarged  the  bounds  of 
human  empire.'  "  Essay  on  Lord  Bacon. 

Shake-speare  actually  wrote  such  a  drama,  on 
precisely  the  same  subject  and  at  precisely  the  same 
time.  We  quote  from  Sir  Richard  Garnett :  "  Here 
[in  the  drama  of  the  Tempest],  more  than  anywhere 
else,  we  seem  to  see  the  world  as,  if  it  had  depended 
upon  him,  Shakespeare  would  have  made  it." 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE      log 


The  date  of  the  drama  is  assigned  to  the  year  1613, 
when  it  was  first  produced,  and  when  Bacon,  as  we 
now  know,  could  have  done  no  further  dramatic  work 
until  his  downfall  in  1621. 

It  was  almost  immediately  after  his  downfall  that 
he  revised  and  published  in  complete  form  and  for 
final  preservation  his  philosophical  writings  (1621- 
23),  precisely  at  the  same  time  that  the  author  of  the 
Shake-speare  Plays  collected  together  and  published 
in  one  folio  volume  all  the  plays  (1623).  This  was 
seven  years  after  the  death  of  the  Stratford  play- 
actor. 

During  the  middle  ages  it  was  a  wide-spread  opin- 
ion throughout  continental  Europe  that  storms  and 
tempests  are  the  work  of  evil  spirits,  and  that  they 
can  be  dispersed  by  the  ringing  of  consecrated  bells. 
For  this  purpose  church  bells  were  solemnly  bap- 
tized, often  with  water  brought  from  the  river  Jordan, 
and  also  duly  tagged  at  their  tongues  with  scriptural 
texts.  Fortunately  the  practice  never  gained  a  foot- 
hold in  England,  at  least  in  the  time  of  Bacon  and 
Shake-speare,  and  yet  these  two  authors  became  in 
some  measure  both  of  them  victims  to  the  super- 
stition.    We  quote  from  Bacon : 

"  It  is  thought  that  the  sounds  of  bells  will  dispel  lightnings  and 
thunder."  Sylva  Sylvarum,  II,  i2j. 

In  the  Shakesperean  play  of  The  Tempest,  Prospero 

wishes  to  allay  the  storm  that  had  wrecked  the  king's 

ship,  and  he  does  so  in  part  by  the  ringing  of  bells. 

Ariel  sings: 

"  Ding-Dong ; 
Hark  !  now  I  hear  them, — ding-dong,  bell." 

The  Sylva  Sylvarum  was  written  in  1622-25;  The 
Tempest  was  printed  in  1623. 


no  COINCIDENCES 

LX. 

Prodigality. 

'  Timon  of  Athens  '  was  neither  printed  in  quarto 
nor,  so  far  as  we  know,  produced  on  the  stage  previ- 
ously to  its  appearance  in  the  folio  of  1623.  No  hint 
of  its  existence  before  that  date  has  ever  been  dis- 
covered in  contemporaneous  literature.  This  is  true 
of  no  other  play  in  the  Shake-spearean  canon.  At 
the  outset  of  our  inquiry,  then,  we  encounter  a  pre- 
sumption that  the  '  Timon  '  of  Shake-speare  was  a 
new  drama,  fresh  from  the  hand  of  its  author  in  1623, 
or  seven  years  after  the  death  of  the  reputed  poet  at 
Stratford.  Indeed,  the  character  of  the  play  itself 
seems  to  raise  this  presumption  to  the  level  of  a 
probability,  if  not,  in  connection  with  other  well- 
known  facts,  to  that  of  a  practical  certainty. 

Timon  was  a  citizen  of  Athens  ;  at  the  beginning 
of  his  career,  of  large  means,  but  so  prodigal  of  ex- 
penditure for  the  good  of  others  that  he  finally  be- 
came bankrupt.  His  ruin  was  due  to  an  excess  of 
generosity,  or  to  a  fatal  inappreciation  of  the  value 
of  money.  At  the  slightest  need  of  a  friend  or  even 
of  a  servant  his  hand  and  purse  were  always  ready  to 
help.  The  consequence  was,  that  falling  at  last  into 
great  pecuniary  straits,  and  seeking  in  vain  to  supply 
his  wants  from  those  whom  he  had  befriended,  he 
became  a  misanthrope. 

Except  in  one  particular,  this  is  an  exact  portrait- 
ure of  Francis  Bacon,  and  one  drawn  at  the  exact 
time  in  his  own  life  when  he  too  encountered  a  like 
experience  of  ingratitude. 

Bacon  was  perhaps  the  most  prodigal  man  that 
ever  lived,  more  so  even  than  was  the  younger  Pitt, 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE     in 

in  both  of  whom  indifference  to  money  considerations 
amounted  almost  to  a  disease.  Bacon  kept  his  money 
in  his  library,  in  a  chest  to  which  his  servants  had 
free  access  and  from  which  they  were  accustomed  at 
pleasure  to  fill  their  pockets.  On  one  occasion  he 
gave  to  the  man  who  brought  him  a  buck  as  a  pre- 
sent from  the  king  ;^25,  a  gratuity  equal  in  our  time 
and  in  our  money  to  $1500.  Young  men  of  good 
families  flocked  to  his  service,  because  they  were 
sure  not  only  of  generous  and  kindly  treatment 
while  they  were  in  it,  but  also  of  gratuitous  and  val- 
uable preferments  when  they  left.  At  his  downfall, 
however,  all  his  parasites  forsook  him.  In  vain  he 
begged  for  help.  His  letters  to  Buckingham  and  the 
king  on  the  subject  of  his  pecuniary  distresses  are  ex- 
tremely pathetic.  His  experiences  are  precisely 
those  of  Timon  in  the  play,  though  with  one  charac- 
teristic divergence,  namely  :  under  the  rules  of 
dramatization  Timon  becomes  a  misanthrope ;  Ba- 
con's sweetness  of  disposition  is  retained  to  the  last. 

Bacon  falls  from  power  in  1621 ;  the  play  first  be- 
comes known  in  1623. 


112  COINCIDENCES 

LXI. 
Revisions  of  Writings  for  the  Press. 

Many  of  the  Plays  were  revised  and  re-revised  by 
the  author  before  they  were  printed,  and  also  be- 
tween successive  editions.  The  custom  may  be  said 
to  have  been  an  idiosyncrasy  with  him.  We  give 
some  examples  : 

The  drama  of  '  King  John '  was  first  published  in 
1591  ;  it  was  extensively  re-written  for  the  Folio  of 
1623. 

'  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  '  came  out  anonymously 
in  1594.  More  than  one  thousand  new  lines  were 
afterwards  introduced  into  it. 

*  King  Richard  II.'  was  published  in  several  edi- 
tions between  1597  and  1623.  The  edition  of  1608 
had  a  new  scene  added  to  it ;  and  that  of  1623  niany 
other  important  additions. 

'  King  Henry  V.'  was  published  and  re-published 
several  times  before  its  appearance  in  the  Folio.  It 
grew  in  the  meantime  from  1721  lines,  as  it  was  in 
1602,  to  2133,  as  it  was  in  the  Folio. 

'  Titus  Andronicus  '  was  published  in  1600,  but  it 
had  a  new  scene  added  to  it  in  1623. 

'  The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  '  began  with  1620 
lines  in  1602,  and  reached  2701  in  its  final  form  in 
1623. 

'  Hamlet '  was  revised  by  the  author  three  times  at 
least  in  successive  editions  before  it  appeared  in  the 
Folio. 

'  King  Lear  '  came  from  the  press  in  1608,  but 
underwent  many  alterations  for  the  edition  of  1623. 

The  second  and  third  parts  of  '  King  Henry  VI.' 
were  printed  in  1594,  but  the  changes  made  in  them 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE      113 

in  1619,  and  again  in  1623,  were  extensive.  The 
number  of  lines  was  carried,  in  the  one  from  2214  to 
3353,  and  from  231 1  to  3217,  in  the  other.  The  old 
lines  retouched  (and  many  of  them  after  1619)  were 
about  2000. 

'  Othello  '  was  published  for  the  first  time  in  1622, 
six  years  after  William  Shakspere's  death  at  Strat- 
ford. One  year  later,  however,  it  appeared  again  in 
the  Folio,  with  160  new  lines  and  other  important 
emendations. 

'  King  Richard  III.'  was  subjected  to  like  revision, 
with  marked  additions  and  improvements  in  its  final 
form  in  1623. 

Bacon  rewrote  the  Novum  Organum  twelve  times 
before  its  publication  in  1620.  To  the  edition  of  his 
Advancement  of  Learning  (1605)  he  added  seven 
books  in  1623,  having  extensively  revised  and  re- 
written the  former  text.  The  Essays  which  he  pub- 
lished in  1597  he  rewrote  for  the  edition  of  1612  ;  and 
those  of  1 61 2,  including  many  of  the  older  ones,  he 
rewrote  again  for  the  edition  of  1625.  Many  of  his 
private  letters  have  come  down  to  us  in  two  drafts, 
the  second  one  rewritten,  enlarged  and  improved 
from  the  first. 

It  will  be  seen,  as  already  noted,  that  in  the  case 
of  both  authors  the  work  of  revision  culminated  in  or 
about  1623.  William  Shakspere  of  Stratford  had  then 
been  seven  years  in  his  grave;  and  during  the  last 
twelve  years  of  his  life,  while  living  in  Stratford  and 
unemployed,  had  taken  no  steps  to  preserve  his  works 
(if  he  had  any),  or  shown  any  interest  whatever  in 
them. 


114  COINCIDENCES 

LXII. 
Posthumous  Works. 

It  has  always  excited  some  astonishment  among 
the  students  of  Shake- speare  to  learn  that  of  the 
thirty-six  plays  printed  in  the  first  collective  edition 
(1623),  fourteen  of  them  had  been  written  many  years 
earlier,  but  never  before  printed.  And  these  in- 
cluded some  of  the  most  important,  such  as  The 
Tempest,  Macbeth,  Julius  Caesar,  Anthony  and  Cleo- 
patra, Twelfth  Night,  As  You  Like  It,  Measure  for 
Measure,  Cymbeline  and  The  Winter's  Tale.  The 
inquiry  naturally  arises,  why  were  they  kept  back 
from  the  custody  of  type  for  fifteen  or  twenty  years 
on  the  average,  while  an  equally  formidable  list  had 
been  issuing  from  the  press  since  1591? 

How  was  it  now  with  Bacon  ?  Was  he  also  in  the 
habit  of  restraining  his  literary  ambition  and  post- 
poning for  years  the  publication  of  his  works  ?  The 
answer  to  this  question  must  be  in  the  afiirmative. 
The  following  were  written  at  various  dates  between 
1603  and  1616,  but  were  kept  in  MS.  by  him  for 
about  twenty  years  during  the  remainder  of  his  life  : 
Cogitata  et  FVsa,  De  Intetyretatione  NaturcB^  Descr-iptio 
Glohi  IntellectualiSy  Tliema  Coeli^  Filum  Labyrinthi,  De 
Fluxu  et  Rejluxu  Maris,  Redargutio  Philosophiarum^ 
and  many  others.  The  first  draft  of  his  greatest 
work,  Novum  Organum  was  made  in  1608,  but  the 
book  was  not  printed  until  1620. 

So  far  as  one  set  of  these  works  is  concerned,  we 
may  have  a  partial  explanation  of  these  delays  in  a 
preface  to  the  '  Troilus  and  Cressida,'  for  we  are  told 
in  it  that  this  play  had  escaped  for  purpose  of  publi- 
cation from  grand  possessors;  but  for  others  we  have 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE      115 

the  explanation  in  Bacon's  own  words,  written  to  the 
Bishop  of  Winchester  in  1622  : 

"  I  account  the  use  that  a  man  should  seek  of  the  publishing  of 
his  own  writings  before  his  death  to  be  but  an  untimely  anticipa- 
tion of  that  which  is  proper  to  follow  a  man,  and  not  to  go  along 
with  him," 


ii6  COINCIDENCES 

LXIII. 
Fallen  Greatness. 
The  drama  of  King  Henry  VIII.  was  first  printed 
in  the  Folio  of  1623  ;  no  certain  proof  of  its  existence 
previous  to  that  date  has  been  discovered.  Its  prin- 
cipal character  is  Cardindal  Wolsey,  and  its  most 
brilliant  speech  the  Cardinal's  lament  over  his  fallen 
greatness. 

"  Farewell !  a  long  farewell  to  all  my  greatness  ! 
This  is  the  state  of  man  :  to-day  he  puts  forth 
The  tender  leaves  of  hope  ;  tomorrow  blossoms, 
And  bears  his  blushing  honors  thick  upon  him  ; 
The  third  day  comes  a  frost,  a  killing  frost, 
And  when  he  thinks,  good  easy  man,  full  surely 
His  greatness  is  a  ripening,  —  nips  his  root, 
And  then  he  falls,  as  I  do.     I  have  ventur'd, 
Like  little  wanton  boys  that  swim  on  bladders, 
This  many  summers  in  a  sea  of  glory. 
But  far  beyond  my  depth  ;  my  high-blown  pride 
At  length  broke  under  me,  and  now  has  left  me 
Weary,  and  old  with  service,  to  the  mercy 
Of  a  rude  stream  that  must  forever  hide  me. 
Vain  pomp  and  glory  of  this  world,  I  hate  ye." 

Hi.  2,  351. 

Then  follow  the  well  known  lines  : 

"  O  Cromwell,  Cromwell  ! 
Had  I  but  serv'd  my  God  with  half  the  zeal 
I  serv'd  my  King,  he  would  not  in  mine  age 
Have  left  me  naked  to  mine  enemies."  in.  2,454. 

Bacon  fell  from  power,  and  from  the  same  exalted 
ofl5ce  as  that  from  which  the  great  Cardinal  fell,  with 
equal  shame  and  disgrace,  in  162 1.  A  few  months 
afterward,  in  a  letter  to  the  King,  he  wrote  : 

"Cardinal  Wolsey  said  that  if  he  had  pleased  God  as  he  had 
pleased  the  King  he  had  not  been  ruined." 

Shake-speare  wrote  that  passage  from  the  Cardi- 
nal's speech  in  the  play,  and  Bacon  the  same  passage 
in  a  letter  to  the  King,  at  practically  the  same  time. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE      117 

LXIV. 

Disappointment  in  Life. 
The  author   of  the  Plays  led  a  disappointed  life. 
He  makes  this  confession  in  one  of  the  Sonnets  : 

'•  O  !  for  my  sake  do  you  with  fortune  chide, 
The  guilty  goddess  of  my  harmful  deeds, 
That  did  not  better  for  my  life  provide 
Than  public  means,  which  public  manners  breeds 
Thence  comes  it  that  my  name  receives  a  brand. 
And  almost  thence  my  nature  is  subdu'd 
To  what  it  works  in,  like  the  dyer's  hand. 
Pity  me  then."  Sonnet  Hi. 

We  quote  from  Bacon  : 

"  I  do  confess,  since  I  was  of  any  understanding,  my  mind  hath 
in  effect  been  absent  from  that  I  have  done  ;  .  .  .  knowing  my- 
self by  inward  calling  to  be  fitter  to  hold  a  book  than  to  play  a  part. 
I  have  led  my  life  in  civil  causes  for  which  I  was  not  very  fit  by 
nature,  and  more  unfit  by  the  preoccupation  of  my  mind." 

Bacoti's  Prayer.. 


ii8  COINCIDENCES 

LXV. 

Companionship  in   Distress. 

The  craving  for  sympatliy  which  the  dramatist 
felt  called  upon  on  many  occasions  to  express  almost 
always  took  a  particular  direction ;  it  was  for  that 
which  comes  from  companionship.  This  is  especially 
noticeable  in  '  King  Richard  II.',  *  King  Lear  '  and 
*  The  Tempest.' 

Bacon's  life,  it  may  generally  be  said,  was  one  long 
series  of  misfortunes.  In  1595  the  Queen  refused  to 
admit  him  into  her  service,  on  the  ground  that,  as 
member  of  Parliament,  he  had  been  too  independent 
in  his  course.  His  friends  frequently  importuned 
him  to  make  an  apology  for  it,  but  he  never  did.  On 
the  contrary  he  suffered  himself  to  be  disgraced  for 
ten  long  years  on  account  of  it,  simply  saying  that 
*'  he  was  indifferent  whether  God  or  her  Majesty 
called  him."  Six  years  later  his  old  friend,  the  Earl 
of  Essex,  was  executed  for  treason,  his  "  entire  dear 
brother  Anthony  "  died,  and  his  mother  became  vio- 
lently insane.  In  1621  he  fell  from  power  under 
charges  of  bribery  (since  proved  to  have  been  false) 
and  was  sentenced  to  pay  a  fine  of  ^^40,000,  to  be  im- 
prisoned in  the  Tower,  to  be  forever  incapable  of  any 
office  in  the  Commonwealth,  never  to  sit  in  Parlia- 
ment, or  come  within  the  verge  (twelve  miles)  of  the 
court. 

It  is  therefore  easy  to  understand  why  the  craving 
for  sympathy  runs  through  so  much  of  his  private 
correspondence,  and  especially  for  that  peculiar  and 
exceptional  form  of  it  that  brings  consolation  from 
companionship.  In  a  letter  to  a  friend  he  said  : 
"amongst  consolations  it  is  not  the  least  to  repre- 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE      iig 

sent  to  a  man  like  examples  of  calamity  in  others.'* 
The  examples  he  cited,  as  applicable  to  his  own  case, 
were  those  of  Demosthenes,  Cicero  and  Seneca,  men 
who,  like  himself,  were  orators  and  statesmen. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  the  cases  cited  in  the 
plays  are  also,  as  with  Bacon,  similar  in  kind,  one 
with  another.  Take  the  case  in  '  Richard  II.'  The 
king  is  about  to  be  deposed  and  murdered,  and  the 
sympathy  he  calls  for  is  such  as  belongs  to  kings  : 

"  For  God's  sake,  let  us  sit  upon  the  ground, 

And  tell  sad  stories  of  the  death  of  kings  ; 

How  some  have  been  depos'd,  some  slain  in  war, 

Some  haunted  by  the  ghosts  they  have  depos'd, 

Some  poison'd  by  their  wives,  some  sleeping  kill'd. 

All  murder'd."  Hi,  2,83. 

In  '  King  Lear  '  Edgar  seeks  consolation  for  him- 
self by  comparing  his  own  misery  with  the  King's, 
for  he  sees  the  King  borne  off  to  escape  being  mur- 
dered by  his  daughters  : 

"  When  we  our  betters  see  bearing  our  woes, 
We  scarcely  think  our  miseries  our  foes. 

How  light  and  portable  my  pain  seems  now, 

When  that  which  makes  me  bend  makes  the  king  bow." 

Hi.  6,  102. 

In  '  The  Tempest '  Gonzalo  has  been  shipwrecked; 
accordingly  he  turns  to  distresses  among  mariners  : 

"  Our  hint  of  woe  is  common  ;  every  day  some  sailor's  wife, 
The  master  of  some  merchant,  and  the  merchant. 
Have  just  our  theme  of  woe."  ii.  /,  j. 


I20  COINCIDENCES 

LXVI. 
Death  of  Desdemona. 

The  most  perplexing  denouement  in  Shakespeare, 
one  that  has  been  deemed  so  utterly  at  variance  with 
the  laws  of  human  nature  that  few  editors  and  com- 
mentators have  ventured  to  discuss  it,  is  found  in  the 
circumstances  attending  Desdemona 's  death  in  the 
tragedy  of  '  Othello.'  Shakespearean  scholars  have 
here  as  a  rule  and  with  exceptional  modesty  stood 
aghast,  conscious  of  their  inability  to  explain,  and 
yet  unwilling  to  risk  against  the  great  dramatist,  who 
seems  to  have  taken  all  knowledge  for  his  province,  a 
charge  either  of  ignorance  or  of  wilful  violation  of 
the  canons  of  art.  Dyce,  Staunton,  Halliwell- 
Phillipps,  White,  and  many  others  do  not  even  men- 
tion it.  Voltaire  and  Furness,  however,  are  two  con- 
spicuous exceptions ;  the  one,  exhausting  his  powers 
of  ridicule  over  the  scene  as  depicted  in  the  drama, 
and  the  other,  referring  the  difficulty  to  professional 
experts,  and  then  in  despair  leaving  it  undefended 
and  unexplained. 

Desdemona,  it  is  well-known,  is  smothered  to  death 
in  bed  by  her  husband.  Within  about  a  half  minute 
to  a  minute,  if  we  may  judge  by  the  dialogue  between 
Othello  and  Emilia  that  ensues,  to  make  sure  that 
there  will  be  no  recovery,  she  is  smothered  again, 
this  time  beyond  all  question,  for  she  is  now  pro- 
nounced by  the  dramatist,  who  has  every  fact  at  his 
command,  to  be  actually  dead.  Three  minutes  more 
elapse,  during  which  she  lies  motionless,  without 
breath,  when  she  suddenly  speaks,  utters  several  sen- 
tences at  three  several  times,  with  pauses  and  replies 
in  a  rational  conversation,  and  then,  no  further  vio- 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE     121 

lence  having  been  offered  her,  expires.  The  question 
is,  how  could  Desdemona  have  retained  consciousness 
and  power  of  cognition  and  speech,  not  less  than  four 
or  five  minutes,  after  the  actual  stroke  of  death  had 
been  inflicted  upon  her  ? 

Dr.  Furness  of  Philadelphia,  in  his  Variorum  edi- 
tion of  the  play  published  in  1886,  discussed  the 
matter  at  some  length.  Intimating  as  he  did  that 
"  there  does  seem  to  be  something  not  altogether  true 
to  physiology  in  the  subsequent  revival  of  Desde- 
mona," and  desirous  of  bringing  to  the  aid  of  his 
exegesis  the  light  of  modern  science,  he  addressed 
letters  to  several  eminent  physicians  of  this  country, 
soliciting  their  views  on  the  subject.  We  summarize 
the  replies  received,  excluding  all  speculations  in 
conflict  with  the  text,  as  follows  : 

Dr.  Agnew.  "  I  would  say  that  Shakespeare  has  been  most  un- 
fortunate in  killing  Desdemona.  Death  by  strangulation,  inferred 
from  the  language  used  by  Othello,  —  '  whose  breath,  indeed,  these 
hands  have  newly  stopp'd  '  —  cannot  readily  be  reconciled  with  a 
temporary  revival  and  ability  to  speak  at  three  different  times  on 
the  part  of  the  victim,  after  all  signs  of  life  had  apparently  dis- 
appeared. 

Dr.  Da  Costa.  That  she  should  have  spoken  after  being 
smothered  is  not  possible  ;  if  she  had  regained  consciousness  suffi- 
ciently to  speak  intelligently,  as  she  did,  recovery  would  have 
ensued." 

Dr.  Hammond.  ''  A  person  smothered,  and  speaking  afterwards, 
would  not  die  from  the  smothering.  .  .  .  As  to  what  really  killed 
her,  I  think  it  is  clearly  apparent  that  Shakespeare  was  ignorant  of 
the  modus  operandi  of  smothering." 

Dr.  Furnivall,  in  his  edition  of  the  play,  simply 
says  that  Shake-speare  "  forgot  that  a  person,  once 
stifled,  couldn't  speak  again."  In  view  of  these 
opinions,  no  one  will  be  surprised  to  learn  that  some 
actors,  in  order  to  rescue  the  scene  from  absurdity, 


122  COINCIDENCES 

have  actually  stabbed  Desdemona  on  the  stage.  Booth 
and  Fechter  did  it. 

Mr.  Swinburne  thinks  that  the  difficulty  arises 
from  the  want  of  proper  stage  directions  which  the 
author  would  have  supplied,  had  he  revised  the  play. 
Such  directions  must  have  explained,  he  says,  "  how 
Desdemona  manages  to  regain  her  breath  so  as  to 
speak  three  times  .  .  .  after  being  stifled  to  death. 
To  recover  breath  enough  to  speak,  to  think,  .  .  . 
can  hardly  be  less  than  to  recover  breath  enough  to 
revive  and  live." 

The  question  now  recurs,  what  could  have  induced 
the  dramatist  to  foist  upon  the  narrative  a  circum- 
stance so  extraordinary  and  so  contrary  apparently 
to  all  human  experience  ?  Is  it  known  that  at  any 
previous  time  in  his  career  he  had  ever  investigated 
the  possibility  of  so  strange  an  occurrence  ? 

The  answer  is  at  hand. 

Francis  Bacon  was  retired  to  private  life  in  May, 
1621  ;  he  died  in  April,  1626.  One  of  the  first  of  his 
works  to  which  he  gave  attention  during  this  interval 
was  the  Historia  Vitae  et  Mortis.  In  this  we  find  pre- 
cisely what  we  are  looking  for,  proof  that  one  person 
at  least,  in  the  time  when  the  Shakespeare  plays 
were  coming  out,  carefully  inquired  how  long  one's 
physical  and  mental  powers  can  act  in  certain  direc- 
tions after  every  sign  of  life  is  gone.  We  now  quote 
from  Bacon  : 

"  Eels,  serpents,  and  insects  move  a  good  -while  in  all  their  parts 
after  being  cut  in  pieces  ;  so  that  countrymen  imagine  that  the  dif- 
ferent parts  are  trying  to  unite  again.  Birds  likewise  flutter  for  a 
little  after  their  heads  are  cut  off  ;  and  the  hearts  of  animals  beat 
for  a  long  time  after  being  torn  out.  Indeed,  I  remember  to  have 
seen  the  heart  of  a  man  who  had  his  bowels  torn  out  (the  punish- 
ment with  us  of  high  treason),  which,  on  being  cast  according  to 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE      123 

custom  into  the  fire,  leaped  up  at  first  about  a  foot  and  a  half  high, 
and  then  by  degrees  to  a  less  height,  for  the  space,  as  I  remember, 
of  seven  or  eight  minutes. 

"  There  is  likewise  an  old  and  trustworthy  tradition  of  an  ox 
bellowing  after  his  bowels  were  torn  out.  But  there  is  a  more  cer. 
tain  report  of  a  man  who,  having  undergone  the  said  punishment 
for  treason,  when  his  heart  had  been  torn  out  and  it  lay  in  the 
hands  of  the  executioner,  was  heard  to  utter  three  or  four  words  of 
prayer." 

Desdemona  spoke  after  she  had  for  a  long  time  been 
deprived  of  breath;  here  was  a  man  who,  according  to 
Bacon's  account  of  him,  spoke  not  only  after  he  had 
lost  his  bowels,  but  also  an  appreciable  length  of  time 
after  he  had  lost  his  heart.  In  such  cases  as  these,  of 
bird,  mammal  and  man.  Bacon  seems  to  have  seen 
only  the  natural  flickerings  of  the  lamp  of  life.  He 
would,  of  course,  have  had  the  same  opinion  in  a  like 
case  after  smothering,  for  life  is  then,  as  in  the  case 
cited,  instantaneously  and  irrevocably  extinguished. 

The  tragedy  was  first  printed  in  1622  ;  the  Historia 
Vitae  et  Mortis^  early  in  January  following.  The  two 
studies  in  this  exceptional  matter  were  apparently 
simultaneous. 


124  COINCIDENCES 

LXVII. 
Philip  Henslowe. 

Henslowe  was  a  proprietor  and  manager  of  theatres 
in  London  in  the  time  of  Shakespeare.  He  had  deal- 
ings with  nearly  all  the  dramatic  poets  among  his 
contemporaries,  entering  their  names  in  his  diary, 
the  titles  of  the  plays  they  sold  him,  and  the  amounts 
paid  them.  This  diary  was  found  at  Dulwich  in 
1790,  and  is  still  extant.  It  covers  almost  the  exact 
period  (1591-1609),  during  which  the  Shakespearean 
plays  were  being  first  produced. 

The  following  named  playwrights  are  mentioned  in 
it  :  Drayton,  Jonson,  Wilson,  Hathway,  Dekker, 
Monday,  Chettle,  Webster,  Middleton,  Heywood, 
Chapman,  Day,  Nash,  Pett,  Smith,  Birde,  Daborne. 
Mandeville,  Singer,  Slater,  Marston,  Porter,  Rowley, 
Haughton,  Rankins,  Wadeson  and  Boyle.  These 
were  all  mentioned  by  name. 

The  plays  themselves  which  are  credited  to  these 
dramatists  in  the  diary  are  very  numerous,  but  others 
are  entered  there  which  have  no  authors  assigned  to 
them.  Among  these  are  King  Lear,  Henry  V.,  Henry 
VL  (15  times),  Richard  IH.,  The  Taming  of  a  Shrew, 
and  Titus  Andronicus.  It  is  probable  that  Love's 
Labor's  Lost  under  another  name  (Berowne,  a  char- 
acter in  it)  was  also  acquired  and  produced  by  Hens- 
lowe in  the  same  manner.  But  though  the  diary  ex- 
tends over  a  period  of  eighteen  years  and  bears  a  rec- 
ord not  only  of  the  dramas  played  in  the  theatres 
under  Henslowe 's  management  but  also  of  the 
amounts  of  money  advanced  by  him  from  time  to 
time  to  their  authors,  to  those  whose  abilities  and 
honor  commanded  his  confidence,  the  name  of  Shake- 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE      125 

speare  never  once  occurs  in  it  from  beginning  to  end. 
Why  is  this  ?  Evidently  a  deliberate  suppression, 
and  explanable  only  on  the  ground  that  the  author, 
perhaps  because  he  was  a  nobleman  or  a  high  officer 
of  the  government,  was,  as  Aubrey  says  of  Bacon 
and  as  Bacon  once  said  of  himself,  a  "  concealed 
poet." 


126  COINCIDENCES 

LXVIII. 
George  Sandys. 
It  is  practically  certain  that  both  Bacon  and  Shake- 
speare read  George  Sandys'  book  of  Travels,  pub- 
lished in  1615,  and  even  made  use  of  much  of  its  con- 
tents in  their  respective  writings.  Indeed,  we  know 
from  Bacon  alone  not  only  what  countries  Sandys 
visited,  but  also  the  order  in  which  he  visited  them. 
We  give  a  few  examples  from  each  : 

Bacon.        "The  water  of  Nilus  is  sweeter  than  other  waters  in 

taste." 
Sandys.        "  Than  the  waters  whereof  there  is  none  more  sweet." 

Bacon.  "  It  is  certain  that  in  Egypt  they  prepare  and  clarify  the 
water  of  the  Nile  by  putting  it  in  great  jars  of  stone,  and 
stirring  it  about  with  a  few  stamped  almonds ;  wherewith 
they  also  besmear  the  mouth  of  the  vessel ;  and  so  draw  it 
off  after  it  hath  rested  some  time." 

Sandys.  "They  put  the  water  in  large  jars  of  stone,  stirring  it 
about  with  a  few  stamped  almonds,  wherewith  also  they  be- 
smear the  mouth  of  the  vessel ;  and  for  three  or  four  hours 
do  suffer  it  to  clarify." 

Bacon.  "  It  is  reported  of  credit  that  if  you  take  earth  from  land 
adjoining  to  the  river  of  Nile,  and  preserve  it  in  that  man- 
ner that  it  come  to  be  neither  wet  nor  wasted,  and  weigh  it 
daily,  it  will  not  alter  weight  until  June  17,  which  is  the 
day  when  the  river  beginneth  to  rise." 

Sandys.  "  Take  of  the  earth  of  Egypt,  adjoining  to  the  river,  and 
preserve  it  carefully,  that  it  neither  come  to  be  wet  nor 
wasted  ;  weigh  it  daily,  and  you  shall  find  it  neither  more 
nor  less  heavy  until  the  17th  of  June  ;  at  which  day  it  be- 
ginneth to  grow  ponderous,  and  augmenteth  with  the 
augmentation  of  the  river." 

Bacon.  "  It  is  an  old  tradition  that  those  that  dwell  near  the 
cataracts  of  Nilus  are  strucken  deaf." 

Sandys.  "  He  spouts  down  from  a  wonderful  height  into  the 
valley  below,  and  that  with  such  a  roaring  of  waters  that  a 
colony,  planted  by  the  Persians,  and  made  almost  deaf  with 
the  noise,  were  glad  to  abandon  their  habitations." 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE      12 j 

Bacon.  "  Upon  that  very  day  when  the  river  first  riseth,  great 
plagues  in  Cairo  use  suddenly  to  break  up." 

Sandys.  "  The  Plague,  which  here  oft  miserably  rageth,  upon  the 
first  of  the  flood  doth  instantly  cease." 

Shakespeare.  "They  take  the  flow  o'  the  Nile 

By  certain  scales  i'  the  pyramid." 
Sandys.         "  By  the  pillar,  standing  in  a   vault  within  the  Castle, 
entered  by  the  Nile,  they  measure  his  increase." 

Shakespeare.  "  They  know 

By  the  height,  the  lowness,  or  the  mean,  if  dearth, 
Or  foison  follow.     The  higher  Nilus  swells, 
The  more  it  promises." 

Sandys.  "  Answerable  to  the  increase  of  the  river,  is  the  plenty 
or  scarcity  of  the  year  succeeding." 

Shakespeare.  "As  it  ebbs,  the  seedsman 

Upon  the  slime  and  ooze  scatters  his  grain, 
And  shortly  comes  to  harvest." 
Sandys.         "Retiring  a  month  after  within  his  proper  bounds,  it 
giveth  way  unto  husbandry  (the  earth  untilled)  by  throwing 
the  grain  on  the  mud,  and  rice  into  the  water." 

Sandys'  book  of  travels  was  published  in  London 
in  1615  ;  that  is,  as  years  were  then  reckoned,  be- 
tween March  25,  1615,  and  March  25,  1616.  William 
Shakspere,  the  reputed  poet,  died  at  Stratford 
April  23,  1616,  or  within  less  than  one  year  and  one 
month,  perhaps  one  month  only,  after  said  publication 
in  London.  His  will  was  drawn  by  a  scrivener  in 
January  preceding,  at  which  time  he  was  unable  to 
recall  the  name  of  a  grandchild,  eleven  years  of  age. 
His  death  was  occasioned,  according  to  the  best  evid- 
ence that  we  possess,  by  a  drunken  debauch.  That 
Shakspere  became  acquainted  with  Sandys'  book 
during  the  last  year  of  his  life  in  such  a  town  as 
Stratford,  where,  according  to  Richard  Grant  White, 
not  a  half-dozen  books,  outside  of  the  school  and  the 
church,  could  be  found,  and  where  only   six  of  the 


128  COINCIDENCES 

nineteen  aldermen  and  burgesses  could  write  their 
names,  is  well  nigli  incredible.  If  he  did,  his  own 
daughters  could  not  have  read  the  title-page.  One 
of  them  signed  her  name  to  a  bond  on  the  day  of  her 
marriage  with  a  mark,  and  the  other,  after  living  with 
her  husband  twenty-seven  years,  could  not  distinguish 
his  handwriting  from  another's. 

Shakespere  made  his  last  will  and  testament  at  the 
very  time  he  would  have  been  reading  Sandys,  that 
is,  during  the  last  year  of  his  life,  but  no  mention  of 
such  a  book  or,  indeed,  of  any  other,  is  found  in  it. 
It  seems  to  be  highly  improbable,  therefore,  that  he 
could  have  been  the  author  of  the  Shakespearean 
drama,  '  Anthony  and  Cleopatra,'  in  which  the  pass- 
ages, taken  from  Sandys,  appeared  for  the  first  time  in 
1623,  seven  years  after  his  death.  Bacon's  work, 
Sylva  Sylvarum^'*  in  which  like  passages  appeared, 
was  written  in  1623-26.     Bacon  died  in  1626. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE      12^ 

LXIX. 

Future  Life. 
On  tlie  subject  of  a  future  life  two  authors  of  dis- 
tinction perceive  a  remarkable  coincidence  between 
the  writings  of  Shake-speare  and  Bacon  : 

"  In  his  great  tragedies  he  traces  the  workings  of  noble  or  lovely 
human  characters  on  to  the  point,  and  no  further,  -where  they  dis- 
appear in  the  darkness  of  death,  and  ends  with  a  look  back,  never 
on  toward  anything  beyond."  E.  D.  West. 

"  As  for  the  hopes  and  fears  of  a  second  life,  they  are  as  com- 
pletely absent  [from  Bacon's  Essays]  as  they  are  from  the  Penta- 
teuch." Edwin  A.  Abbott. 


I30  COINCIDENCES 

LXX. 

The  Bust  at  Stratford-upon-Avon. 


Under  Shakspere's  bust  in  the  cTiurch  at  Stratford 
is  the  following  inscription  : 

JuDicio  Pylium,  genio  Socratem,  arte  Maronem. 

[In  wisdom  a  Nestor,  in  genius  a  Socrates,  in  art  a 
Virgil.] 

In  other   words,  the   person  thus   commemorated 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE     131 

was  a  statesman,  a  philosopher  and  a  poet.  It  is 
also  stated  under  the  bust  that  the  body  of  Shak- 
spere  lies  "within  this  monument;"  this  is,  of 
course,  an  error,  for  the  body  of  the  Stratford  Shak- 
spere  is  buried  under  the  floor  of  the  chancel,  at  some 
distance  from  the  monument,  whence  Mr.  Halliwell- 
Phillipps  justly  inferred  that  the  inscription  was 
composed  "  neither  by  a  Stratfordian  nor  by  any  one 
acquainted  with  its  destined  position." 

Can  it  be  that  these  words  were  intended  to  apply, 
not  to  an  ignorant  yokel,  but  to  Francis  Bacon?  No 
one  who  does  not  stand  at  or  near  the  head  of  the 
human  race  can  satisfy  the  requirements,  as  the  fol- 
lowing considerations  will  show : 

Wisdom.  Bacon  can  be  compared  to  no  other  person  in  ancient 
or  modern  times  more  fitly  in  this  respect  than  to  Nestor,  who  for 
his  wisdom  in  practical  affairs  was  reckoned  by  the  Greeks  among 
the  immortal  gods.  Indeed,  the  title  by  which  Bacon  has  now  be- 
come universally  known  is,  The  Wisest  of  Mankind. 

Genius.  Socrates  and  Bacon,  one  among  the  ancients  and  the 
other  in  modern  times,  are  perhaps  the  two  greatest  moral  forces 
ever  introduced  into  humanity.  Indeed,  Bacon  is  often  called 
Socrates.  "No  book,"  says  Macauley,  referring  to  the  Novum 
Organurn,  "ever  made  so  great  a  revolution  in  the  mode  of  think- 
ing, overthrew  so  many  prejudices,  introduced  so  many  new  opin- 
ions. Every  part  of  it  blazes  with  wit,  but  with  wit  which  is  em- 
ployed only  to  illustrate  and  decorate  truth." 

Art.  Under  the  head  of  art  we  have  in  the  inscription  as  our 
third  exemplar  the  Author  of  the  ^neid.  This  is  perhaps  the 
happiest  inspiration  of  all  in  the  matter  before  us,  for  it  serves  to 
explain  and  justify  the  finest  piece  of  literary  criticism  ever  made 
on  Francis  Bacon.     We  give  it  without  comment : 

"  There  is  something  about  him  not  fully  understood  or  discerned 
which,  in  spite  of  all  curtailments  of  his  claims  in  regard  to  one 
special  kind  of  eminence  or  another,  still  leaves  the  sense  of  his 
eminence  as  strong  as  ever.  George  L.  Craik. 

The  discrepancy  between  the  bust  (which  all  good 
judges  say  "  has  no  more  individuality  or  power  than 


JS2  COINCIDENCES 

a  boy's  marble  ")  and  the  inscription  under  it  may  be 
dismissed. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE      133 

LXXI. 
Portrait. 


Droeshout  Portrait  (as  reputed)  of  the  Stratford  Shakspere. 

This  is  the  portrait  inserted  as  a  frontispiece  in  the 
folio  editions  of  Shake-speare,  beginning  in  1623, 
seven  years  after  the  reputed  author's  death.  It  is 
hardly  considered  as  the  likeness  of  a  human  being. 

Mr.  Boaden,  in  his  '  Portraits  of  Shakespeare  * 
(1824),  calls  it  "an  abominable  libel  on  humanity." 

Richard  Grant  White,  "  a  hard  wooden  staring 
thing." 


134  COINCIDENCES 

Dr.  Ingleby,  **  such  a  montrosity  that  I  for  one  do 
not  believe  it  had  any  trustworthy  exemplar." 

Mr.  Norris,  in  his  'Portraits  of  Shake-speare,'  p. 
15,  says,  *'  it  is  not  known  from  what  it  was  copied, 
and  many  think  it  unlike  any  human  being." 

Dr.  Appleton  Morgan,  President  of  the  New  York 
Shakespeare  Society  :  "  The  face  has  the  wooden  ex- 
pression familiar  in  the  Indians  used  as  signs  for 
tobacconists'  shops,  accompanied  by  an  idiotic  stare 
that  would  be  but  a  sorry  advertisement  for  the  hum- 
blest establishment  in  that  Trade." 

Mr.  Skottowe,  in  his  '  Life  of  Shakespeare,'  p.  76  : 
*'  Irreconcilable  with  the  belief  of  its  ever  having 
borne  a  striking  resemblance  to  any  human  being." 

Craig's  '  Shakespeare  and  Art,'  p.  25:  "  The  head 
is  comparatively  narrow,  so  very  marked  in  this  re- 
spect that  it  indicates  not  only  weakness  in  the  por- 
trait but  feebleness  in  the  character.  ...  As  a 
monumental  effigy,  it  would  deservedly  become  the 
scorn  and  scoff  of  future  ages." 

The  greatest  portrait  painter,  with  the  possible 
exception  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  England  has  pro- 
duced was  Thomas  Gainsborough;  in  1768,  he  ex- 
pressed this  opinion  of  the  Shakespeare  frontispiece : 

"  A  stupider  face  I  never  beheld.  It  is  impossible  that  such  a 
mind  and  ray  of  heaven  could  shine  with  such  a  face  and  pair  of 
eyes  as  that  picture  has." 

It  is  marvelous  that  in  all  these  years,  nearly  three 
centuries,  and  in  a  matter  to  which  scholars  have 
given  so  much  time  and  attention,  the  explanation  of 
this  mystery  is  only  now  just  dawning  upon  the 
world.  Ben  Jonson  gives  a  hint  of  it  in  the  lines  re- 
ferring to  the  engraver,  contributed  by  him  to  the 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE      135 

first  Folio  and  printed  opposite  the  frontispiece,  in 
part  as  follows  : 

"  O,  could  he  but  have  drawn  his  wit 
As  well  in  brass  as  he  hath  hit 
His  face,  the  print  would  then  surpass 
All  that  was  ever  writ  in  brass." 

That  is,  as  Mr.  Donnelly  interprets  the  lines, 

All  that  was  ever  writ  —  in  brass. 

The  truth  is,  as  Mr.  Borman  first  conjectured,  the 
portrait  is  masked.  Even  the  line  of  demarkation 
along  the  chin  is  visible.  The  whole  thing  is  evi- 
dently a  caricature,  to  which  the  engraver,  in  view 
of  a  royal  decree  promulgated  in  the  first  year  of 
Elizabeth,  that  no  man  under  a  penalty  of  3s.  4d. 
should  appear  at  the  great  table  with  a  beard  exceed- 
ing a  fortnight's  growth,  has  given  a  humorous 
touch. 


136  COINCIDENCES 

LXXII. 
Behind  a  Mask. 

Bacon  described  his  philosophy  as  The  Interpreta- 
tion of  Nature.  What  he  meant  by  nature  in  this 
connection  he  tells  us  in  the  Novum  Organum^  thus  : 
"It  may  be  asked  whether  I  speak  of  natural  phil- 
osophy alone,  or  whether  I  mean  that  the  other  sci- 
ences, logic,  ethics  and  politics,  should  also  be  car- 
ried on  by  this  method.  Now  I  certainly  mean  what 
I  have  said  to  be  understood  of  them  all ;  and  as  the 
common  logic,  which  governs  by  the  syllogism,  ex- 
tends not  only  to  natural,  but  also  to  all  sciences,  so 
does  mine,  which,  proceeding  by  induction,  embraces 
everything.  For  I  form  a  history  and  tables  of  dis- 
covery for  anger,  fear,  shame  and  the  like ;  for 
matters  political ;  and  again  for  the  mental  opera- 
tions of  memory,  composition,  division,  judgment 
and  the  rest,  not  less  than  for  heat  and  cold,  or  light, 
or  vegetation."  (CXXVII).  He  says  further,  else- 
where and  with  more  particularity,  that  he  will  treat 
of  the  "characters  and  dispositions  of  men  as  they 
are  affected  by  sex,  by  age,  by  religion,  by  health 
and  illness,  by  beauty  and  deformity  ;  and  also  of 
those  which  are  caused  by  fortune,  as  sovereignty, 
nobility,  obscure  birth,  riches,  want,  magistracy, 
prosperity  and  adversity." 

Bacon's  philosophy,  therefore,  as  he  conceived  it, 
embraced  our  whole  being,  the  mind  and  its  traits  as 
well  as  the  physical  powers  by  which  we  are  gov- 
erned. It  had  no  other  limitation  than  that  of  our 
life  and  its  interests  here  on  the  earth. 

Among  the  personal  qualifications  of  such  an  in- 
terpreter, as  laid  down  by  Bacon,  is  one  to  which  thus 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE      is? 

far  little  attention  has  been  given,  viz.  Let  him,  man- 
age his  perfional  affairs  under  a  mask,  but  with  due  re- 
gard to  the  circumstances  in  which  he  is  placed.^  This  is 
probably  as  clear  a  statement  on  the  point  as  Bacon 
deemed  it  prudent  to  make,  but  the  following  infer- 
ence from  it  is  unmistakable ;  any  person  who 
would  undertake  Bacon's  work  as  a  philosopher  and 
carry  it  on  as  he  did  must  wear  a  mask.  Therefore 
it  follows  that  Bacon  himself  wore  one.  That  is,  he 
wrote  under  a  pseudonym. 

The  author  of  the  Plays  also  wore  a  mask,  for  the 
name  he  assumed  —  Shake-speare  —  could  not  possi- 
bly have  been  his  true  one.  No  such  patronymic 
was  ever  known  in  the  history  of  the  world.  It  seems 
to  have  been  derived  from  Pallas,  the  goddess  of  wis- 
dom, whose  name  was  itself  derived  from  TroXXetj',  to 
shake^  and  who  was  represented  in  the  statuary  art  of 
the  Greeks  with  an  immense  spear  in  her  right  hand. 
She  was  known  indeed  as  the  Spear-shaker  or  Shake- 
spear  of  the  Grecian  civilization. 

This  name,  with  a  hyphen  between  the  syllables, 
appears  fifteen  times  in  the  Shakespearean  Plays. 
Ben  Jonson  refers  to  it  in  the  poem  with  which  he 
opens  the  great  Shakespearean  Folio  of  1623  : 

"  He  seems  to  shake  a  lance, 
As  brandish't  at  the  eyes  of  ignorance." 


^  The  original  Latin  is  as  follows :  Privata  vegotia  personatus  ad- 
minist7-et,  rerzivi  tanien  p7-ovisus  stihvenerans.  Mr.  Spedding  says  of  it 
in  a  foot-note  :  "  I  cannot  say  that  I  clearly  understand  the  sen- 
tence ;  but  I  think  it  must  refer  to  the  necessity  of  using  popular 
ideas  for  popular  purposes."  His  associate  in  the  editorship  of 
Bacon's  works,  Mr.  Ellis,  is,  to  say  the  least,  equally  unhappy  in 
his  translation  of  it :  "He  must  affect  more  interest  in  them  [his 
private  affairs]  than  he  feels."  This  seems  to  have  spurred  Mr. 
Spedding  to  still  another  conjecture  of  the  meaning  thus:  "The 
interpreter  must  speak  to  people  in  their  own  language."  Com- 
ment on  such  ridiculous  guesswork  is  unnecessary. 


ijS  COINCIDENCES 

It  may  indeed  have  suggested  the  actual  mask  seen 
in  the  Droeshout  portrait  of  the  author  of  the  Plays 
in  the  Folios.  This  explains  why  that  portrait  does 
not  resemble  a  human  being. 

In  Liddell  and  Scott's  Greek-English  lexicon  the 
name  of  Pallas  is  etymologically  given  as  The  Brand- 
isher  of  the  Spear. 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE      139 

Summary  of  Coincidences. 

1.  Shake-speare  eulogizes  tlie  people  of  Kent 
county  (and  of  no  other)  in  England,  the  home  of  the 
Bacon  family. 

2.  Both  authors  were  aristocrats. 

3.  Both  were  educated  at  the  same  university. 

4.  Each  was  extraordinarily  self-confident  that 
his  own  writings  were  immortal. 

5.  Shakespeare's  vocabulary  is  the  largest  ever 
attained  by  any  individual  in  any  language  or  in  any 
age  of  the  world.  Bacon's  is  equally  remarkable  for 
its  extent  and  richness. 

6.  Both  seem  to  have  acquired  all  knowledge 
then  existing,  Bacon  having  made  this  one  of  his  pro- 
fessed aims  in  life. 

7.  Both  considered  themselves  old  men  before 
they  were  thirty-seven  or  thereabouts. 

8.  Both  were  great  orators. 

9.  Both  were  profound  lawyers. 

10.  The  scenes  of  the  early  plays  are  those  where 
Bacon  had  spent  his  youth. 

II  Both  had  a  colloquial  use  of  the  French  lan- 
guage. 

12.  Immediately  before  the  historical  drama  of 
King  Henry  VI.  was  written,  Bacon  visited  the  Eng- 
lish battle-grounds,  described  in  that  drama,  in 
France. 

13  Bacon  had  special  opportunities,  as  an  attache 
of  the  English  embassy  in  France,  to  investigate  the 
career  of  Joan  of  Arc.  The  author  of  the  drama  of 
King  Henry  VI.  must  actually  have  investigated  it. 

14.  Both  wrote  sonnets. 

15.  Florio  published  a  sonnet  the  author  of  which 


I40  COINCIDENCES 

lie  described  as  (i)  his  friend;  (2)  a  person  of  higli 
rank  ;  and  (3)  a  concealed  poet.  Bacon  answers  to 
this  description  in  every  particular. 

16.  In  the  last  days  of  Elizabeth  both  authors 
feared  the  rising  democracy. 

17.  Both  were  familiar  with  the  private  rules  that 
govern  the  Inner  Temple  in  London,  an  institution 
for  lawyers  to  which  the  public  were  not  admitted. 

18.  Both  favored  the  use  of  commonplace  books, 
the  dramatist  advocating  it  at  the  time  when  Bacon 
was  actually  keeping  one. 

19.  Both  names  were  inscribed  in  the  handwriting 
of  the  time  on  one  of  Bacon's  private  portfolios  (re- 
cently discovered),  the  latter  containing,  inter  alia^ 
some  of  Bacon's  manuscripts  and  among  them  two 
of  the  Shake-speare  plays. 

20.  The  first  of  the  Shake-speare  poems  to  be 
published  was  dedicated  to  one  of  Bacon's  most  inti- 
mate friends,  a  nobleman  whose  consent  (for  the  want 
of  which  a  play-actor  would  have  lost  his  ears)  had 
not  been  previously  obtained. 

21.  This  poem  was  written  before  the  reputed 
poet's  arrival  in  London,  with  no  possible  education 
beyond  that  afforded  by  the  Stratford  grammar 
school.  And  yet,  as  agreed  by  all  scholars  who  have 
examined  the  subject,  it  bears  every  mark  of  collegi- 
ate elegance  and  culture. 

22.  Both  were  familiar  with  the  art  of  play-act- 
ing, one  laying  down  rules  for  it  in  '  Hamlet,'  and  the 
other  superintending  exercises  of  the  kind  as  a  recog- 
nized proficient  therein  among  the  young  lawyers  of 
Gray's  Inn. 

23.  Shake-speare  made  a    practice    of  using   the 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE      141 

plots  of  others  for  his  dramas,  and  Bacon,  in  writing 
history,  acknowledged  his  dependence  on  authors  who 
had  preceded  him  and  given  him  the  main  facts.  The 
method  which  one  acted  upon  the  other  explained 
and  defended. 

24.  Bacon's  brother  was  residing  in  Navarre  and 
in  constant  correspondence  with  Francis  at  the  time 
when  the  comedy  of  'Love's  Labor's  Lost'  was  written. 
The  scene  of  the  play  is  laid  at  the  court  of  Navarre. 
It  deals  with  the  mode  of  study  then  in  vogue  in  the 
world,  the  one  that  caused  Bacon's  disgust  at  Cam- 
bridge and  induced  him  to  leave  the  university  with- 
out completing  his  course  or  taking  his  degree. 

25.  Bacon  was  an  undergraduate  at  Cambridge  at 
the  time  when  Dr.  Caius  was  conducting  himself  in 
so  exciting  a  manner  among  the  students  there.  The 
doctor  is  ridiculed  under  his  own  name  in  the  '  Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor.' 

26.  One  of  the  historical  plays  of  Shake-speare 
was  devoted  to  the  reign  of  King  John,  but  no  men- 
tion is  made  in  it  of  the  Magna  Charta,  the  great 
event  of  the  reign.  Bacon  disapproved  of  every  effort 
of  the  people  to  gain  a  part  in  the  government. 

27.  The  author  of  the  plays  gives  in  the  drama  of 
King  Henry  VI.  an  erroneous  view  of  the  character 
of  the  Duke  of  Gloucester.  It  is  the  view  that  was 
taken  of  it  at  the  Duke's  home  at  St.  Albans.  Bacon 
lived  at  St.  Albans. 

28.  Bacon  became  debtor  to  a  Jew  and  was  arrested 
in  the  street  for  non-payment  under  circumstances 
designed  to  disgrace  him.  It  was  but  a  month  or  two 
afterward  that  Shake-speare  produced  the  '  Merchant 
of  Venice  '  with  Shylock  as  its  principal  character. 


142  COINCIDENCES 

29.  The  author  of  '  Troilus  and  Cressida,'  as  in- 
timated in  the  preface  to  it,  was  not  only  a  member 
of  the  nobility,  but  also  a  popular  lawyer.  Bacon 
was  both  a  nobleman  and  a  lawyer. 

30.  Both  of  our  authors  had  great  admiration  for 
the  character  of  Julius  Caesar,  one  calling  him  "  the 
noblest  man  that  ever  lived,"  and  the  other,  "  the 
worthiest  man  that  ever  lived."  Shake-speare  wrote 
a  drama  and  Bacon  a  biography  of  him.  Both  were 
impressed  with  Caesar's  work  on  the  calendar. 

31.  In  Shake-speare's  series  of  historical  dramas 
the  reign  of  Henry  VII.  is  strangely  omitted  ;  but 
Bacon  wrote  a  history  of  it  in  prose,  beginning  at  the 
exact  point  where  Shake-speare  left  off  in  the  preced- 
ing drama,  and  leaving  off  at  the  exact  point  where 
Shake-speare  began  again  in  the  next. 

32.  The  author  of  the  Plays  dramatised  Woolsey's 
downfall  from  the  Lord  Chancellorship  of  England 
in  the  play  of  King  Henry  VIII.,  first  published  in 
1623.  Bacon  fell  from  the  same  high  office  in  162 1, 
and  died  in  1626.  The  reputed  poet  died  at  Stratford 
in  1616. 

33.  Shake-speare  portrayed  the  symptoms  of  in- 
sanity in  several  of  the  plays  published  after  1603. 
Bacon  had  sole  charge  of  his  mother,  who  was  vio- 
lently insane  from  1601  to  1610. 

34.  Both  authors  knew  that  the  tidal  current 
through  the  Bosphorus  always  flows  from  east  to 
west,  Shake-speare  mentioning  the  fact  in  one  of  his 
dramas  ;  not  however  in  the  first  edition  of  this  drama, 
published  six  years  after  the  reputed  poet's  death  at 
Stratford,  but  in  the  second,  published  one  year  later 
still. 

35.  When  the  author  of  the  plays  was  obliged  to 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE      143 

seek  a  new  name  for  his  famous  buffoon,  he  adopted 
that  of  Sir  John  Falstaff.  The  selection  has  never 
been  satisfactorily  accounted  for,  but  it  is  now  known 
that  at  the  date  of  its  adoption  Bacon  had  an  associ- 
ate in  the  practice  of  law  named  John  Halstaff . 

36.  Both  authors  had  an  idiosyncracy  for  writing 
words  in  one  language  with  the  alphabet  of  another. 

37.  Both  were  familiar  with  the  Spanish  language. 

38.  Both  were  familiar  with  the  Italian  language. 

39.  Both  were  familiar  with  the  Greek  language. 

40.  Both  held  the  opinion  that  foul  odors  were  the 
cause  of  epilepsy. 

41.  Both  authors  adopted  the  theory  that  the 
centre  of  the  earth  is  cold,  at  precisely  the  same  time 
and  against  the  otherwise  universal  opinion  of  man- 
kind. 

42.  Both  opposed  the  Copernican  theory,  and  con- 
tinued to  oppose  it  through  life,  even  after  it  had 
been  generally  accepted. 

43.  Both  changed  their  views  relating  to  the 
cause  of  the  tides  at  the  same  time,  in  the  same  man- 
ner, and  against  universal  opinion. 

44.  Both  also  changed  their  minds  late  in  life  re- 
garding the  philosophic  connection  between  motion 
and  sense. 

45.  The  two  were  further  agreed  on  an  abstruse 
and  purely  technical  matter  in  the  science  of  music, 
but  neither  opinion  was  expressed  until  many  years 
after  the  death  of  the  reputed  poet  at  Stratford,  and 
then  at  the  same  precise  time. 

46.  The  difference  between  nature  and  art  was  de- 
fined by  the  two  in  the  same  terms  and  simultane- 
ously. 

47.  In  one  of  the  early  plays  judicial  torture  was 


144  COINCIDENCES 

condemned  ;  but  in  a  later  edition,  after  Bacon  had 
been  obliged  by  command  of  the  King  to  take  part  in 
a  case  of  the  kind,  the  condemnatory  passage  was 
omitted. 

48.  Both  authors  wrote  on  the  subject  of  envy, 
one  a  drama  and  the  other  an  essay.  The  drama  was 
first  published  in  1623  and  the  essay  in  1625,  with 
the  same  sentiments  in  the  two  productions. 

49.  Both  took  great  interest  in  efforts  to  secure 
repeal  of  obsolete  laws,  one  writing  a  drama  on  the 
subject  and  the  other  twice  proffering  his  services  to 
the  government  to  that  end. 

50.  The  writings  of  both  were  brought  into  com- 
plete and  permanent  form  and  finally  published  for 
preservation  at  the  same  time,  the  Shake-speare 
plays  and  poems  in  1623  and  Bacon's  Novum  Or- 
ganum  and  De  Augmentis  Scientiarum  in  1620-23. 

51.  The  two  were  alike  at  enmity  with  Sir  Ed- 
ward Coke. 

52.  Both  declared  that  Queen  Elizabeth  had  lived 
and  died  a  virgin. 

53.  Both  produced  works  that  were  despised  by 
contemporaries. 

54.  Bacon  was  condemned  for  bribery  against  his 
protestations  of  innocence  in  1621.  The  dramatist, 
in  the  name  of  one  of  his  characters,  disclaimed 
charges  of  bribery  after  1619  and  before  1623. 

55.  Each  had  a  dark  period  in  his  life,  due  to  a 
scandal  of  the  same  kind  and  producing  the  same 
effect. 

56.  Each  associated  closely  together  in  ridicule  and 
contempt  two  physicians,  one  who  was  born  in  Asia 
Minor  and  had  been  dead  more  than  a  thousand  years, 
and  the  other  born  in  Switzerland  and  had  been  dead 


BACON  AND  SHAKESPEARE      145 

nearly  a  hundred  years,  with  no  apparent  connection 
between  them. 

57.  Each  has  been  considered  by  excellent  judges 
the  greatest  intellectual  force  that  ever  existed  in  the 
world. 

58.  Each  has  acquired  the  title,  given  by  general 
consent,  of  '  the  wisest  of  mankind.' 

59.  The  great  drama  of  'The  Tempest,'  which 
has  so  long  been  an  enigma  to  scholars,  is  simply  an 
application  of  Bacon's  philosophy  to  mankind. 

60.  '  Timon  of  Athens  '  was  unknown  until  it 
was  published  in  1623,  two  years  after  Bacon's  down- 
fall. Its  subject  is  prodigality,  one  of  the  causes  of 
Bacon's  distress  at  that  period  of  his  life. 

61.  Both  authors  were  in  the  habit  of  making 
frequent  revisions  of  their  writings  for  the  press, 
even  after  the  writings  had  been  printed  ;  in  some  in- 
stances, after  they  had  been  printed  several  times. 

62.  Both  authors  left  an  extraordinarily  large 
number  of  their  works  to  be  published  posthumously. 
Bacon  confessing  that  he  did  it  on  principle. 

63.  Cardinal  Wolsey's  lament  over  fallen  great- 
ness, as  given  in  the  drama  of  King  Henry  VIII.,  ex- 
actly befits  Bacon's  personal  experience. 

64.  Both  authors  claim  to  have  led  disappointed 
lives. 

65.  Both  sought  consolation  in  like  examples  of 
distress  in  others. 

66.  Bacon  investigated  the  question  how  long  con- 
scienciousness  can  exist  after  every  sign  of  life  in  the 
body  has  disappeared  ;  Shake-speare  illustrated  Ba- 
con's erroneous  and  absurd  conclusions  in  the  death 
of  Desdemona. 

67.  Philip  Henslow  had  extensive  dealings  with 


146  COINCIDENCES 

London  dramatists  during  nearh/  all  of  Shake-speare's 
life,  but  though  keeping  a  diary,  never  mentions 
Shake-speare  by  name. 

68.  Both  authors  are  known  to  have  read  George 
Sandy's  book  of  Travels  and  to  have  quoted  from  it. 

69.  The  tragedies  of  Shake-speare  and  the  Essays 
of  Bacon  are  equally  and  strangely  reticent  on  the 
subject  of  a  future  life. 

70.  The  inscription  under  the  bust  at  Stratford 
applies,  not  to  Shakspere,  the  play-actor,  but  to 
Bacon. 

71.  The  frontispiece  in  the  Shake-peare  Folios 
represents  the  author  behind  a  mask. 

72.  Bacon  advises  all  interpreters  of  human  nature 
and  life,  such  as  he  acknowledged  himself  to  be  and 
such  as  we  know  the  author  of  the  Shake-speare 
Poems  and  Plays  to  have  been,  to  write  under  pseud- 
onyms. 


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